THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 


Marion  K»  Morrow 


THE  HONOR  OF  THE  CHURCH 


THE  HONOR 
OF  THE  CHURCH 

BY 
CHARLES  R.  BROWN 

Dean  of  the  Divinity  School 
Yale  University 


THE  PILGRIM  PRESS 

BOSTON  CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
BY  SIDNEY  A.  WESTON 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

THE    JORDAN    &    MORE    PRESS 
BOSTON 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

I.    HONORING  THE  CHURCH 1 

II.     BUILDING  THE  CHURCH 19 

III.  BELONGING  TO  THE  CHURCH 37 

IV.  RECRUITING  THE  CHURCH 49 

V.    ADAPTING  THE  CHURCH 65 

VI.     UNIFYING  THE  CHURCH  81 


370 


HONORING  THE  CHURCH 


Honoring  the  Church 

IT  is  considered  very  good  form  and  very 
good  fun  in  certain  quarters  these  days 
to  maul  the  church.  It  is  a  chilly  day 
when  some  light-hearted  newspaper  reporter 
does  not  make  merry  in  a  column  or  two  over 
what  he  regards  as  "  the  faults  and  failures 
of  the  Protestant  Church."  He  is  careful 
not  to  attack  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  for 
reasons  which  we  all  understand  full  well. 
And  it  is  a  very  cold  day  when  some  minister, 
like  an  ill-bred  bird,  does  not  foul  his  own  nest 
by  criticising  and  even  caricaturing  the 
church  which  originally  gave  him  his  oppor- 
tunity to  be  heard.  In  my  judgment  it  is 
poor  business  all  around.  It  gives  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  enemy.  It  amuses  some, 
wounds  many,  and  helps  none.  I  wish  to 
protest  against  it,  and  to  say  a  word  here  as 
straight  and  as  strong  as  I  know  how  to  make 
it  for  "  the  honor  of  the  church." 

We  have  been  told  in  trenchant  magazine 
articles,  written  by  ministers  who  were  old 
enough  to  have  known  better,  that  if  the 
pastors  of  the  churches  had  not  been  "  so 
benignly  dumb,"  —  I  am  quoting  here  from 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

an  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  — "  so 
hopelessly  inefficient,"  the  kingdom  of  God 
might  have  been  coming  with  power  and 
great  glory.  We  are  informed  that  millions 
of  the  choicest  young  men  in  the  land  are 
almost  beside  themselves  "  in  their  eagerness 
to  embrace  Christianity,"  but  for  some  subtle 
reason,  known  only  to  the  adept,  "  they  are 
bristling  with  hostility "  toward  the  one 
organization  which  for  nineteen  centuries  has 
done  more  than  all  other  organizations  put 
together  to  make  that  Christianity  a  power  in 
the  thought  and  action  of  the  world.  It  is 
all  somewhat  puzzling  to  the  plain  man  who 
walks  with  his  eyes  on  the  stars  and  his  feet 
on  the  solid  earth. 

When  I  read  these  slashing  criticisms  in 
glowing  magazine  articles,  I  always  wonder 
where  the  essayists  have  been.  My  own 
personal  observation  of  the  church  in  this 
country  has  been  neither  brief  nor  narrow.  I 
am  fifty-nine  years  old,  and  I  have  attended 
church  all  my  life.  I  was  born  in  Virginia, 
grew  up  and  went  to  college  in  Iowa,  received 
my  theological  training  in  Boston,  held  three 
pastorates  covering  twenty-two  years  in  Ohio, 
Massachusetts,  and  California;  and  for  the 
last  eleven  years  I  have  been  living  in  Con- 
necticut. And  in  all  that  time  I  have  never 
heard,  nor  heard  of,  a  minister  preaching  "a 


Honoring  the  Church 

long  evening  sermon  against  the  evil  of  drink- 
ing sweet  cider,"  or  threatening  people  with 
the  wrath  of  God  because  they  wanted  to 
hear  Edwin  Booth  in  "  Hamlet,"  or 
"  causing  nine-year-old  boys  to  suffer  tragic 
torment  because  they  thought  they  had 
committed  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  so 
were  lost."  If  these  faults  which  the  maga- 
zine articles  allege  against  the  church  were 
common  and  characteristic,  surely  I  would 
have  bumped  against  them  sometime,  some- 
where. 

The  critics,  with  great  vigor  in  their  lit- 
erary style,  clamor  for  "  courage,  self-devo- 
tion, fidelity  to  duty,  unconquerable  cheer, 
loyalty,  willingness  to  die  for  one's  cause  ' 
—  quoting  again  from  another  article  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly.  They  do  well  — the 
idea  is  altogether  sound,  though  in  no  sense 
new.  And  where  are  these  qualities  of  cour- 
age, devotion,  fidelity  to  duty,  and  all  the 
rest  to  be  found  at  their  best  and  in  largest 
measure,  not  alone  under  the  stimulus  of  a 
great  war,  where  of  necessity  the  demand 
for  them  will  be  limited  to  a  brief  period, 
but  in  the  give  and  take,  in  the  wear  and 
tear,  of  a  whole  lifetime? 

Here  again  my  observation  has  not  been 
altogether  narrow.  For  six  years  I  was  a 
member  of  the  Central  Labor  Council,  made 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

up  of  the  representatives  of  all  the  Labor 
Unions  in  a  large  city.  It  met  every  Mon- 
day night,  and  during  those  six  years  I  came 
to  know  intimately  those  men  who  were 
striving  to  better  the  conditions  of  their 
own  class.  I  was  a  visitor  for  two  years  for 
the  Associated  Charities  in  one  large  city, 
and  for  ten  years  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  the  Organized  Charities  of  an- 
other city.  I  have  been  in  close  touch  with 
the  resident  workers  of  well-known  social 
settlements,  East  and  West,  rejoicing  in 
and  aiding  in  the  good  work  they  were  doing. 
I  have  been  for  eleven  years  a  member  of 
the  faculty  of  Yale  University,  and  during 
that  time  I  have  preached  and  lectured  and 
given  addresses  in  one  hundred  and  twelve 
colleges  and  universities.  I  know  person- 
ally large  numbers  of  these  men  and  women 
who  are  giving  unstintedly  of  their  best  to 
the  great  work  of  education. 

And  as  a  result  of  my  observation  I  am 
ready  to  maintain  against  all  comers  that 
nowhere  on  earth  is  there  to  be  found  so 
large  and  so  constant  a  measure  of  self- 
sacrifice,  of  Christlike  spirit,  of  unflagging 
devotion  to  the  principles  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  and  of  patient  fidelity  to  duty 
on  the  part  of  those  who  walk  the  ways  of 
common  life,  as  in  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

6 


Honoring  the  Church 

I  will  back  the  pastors  and  the  faithful  mem- 
bers of  these  churches  for  sheer  moral  ideal- 
ism against  any  group  of  people  which  can 
be  brought  forward  from  any  other  one 
organization  to  be  found  in  our  American  life. 

When  the  great  missionary  societies,  for 
example,  want  young  men  and  young  women 
of  sound  health,  trained  intelligence,  social 
grace,  and  Christian  integrity,  to  go  forth 
to  all  the  spiritual  frontiers  of  earth  and  there 
display  these  qualities  of  '  courage,  devo- 
tion, loyalty,  willingness  to  die  for  one's 
cause  "  during  all  the  working  years  of  their 
consecrated  lives,  where  do  they  get  them? 
They  get  them,  of  course,  from  the  churches 
where  these  young  people  have  been  con- 
verted, nurtured  and  furnished  with  that 
spiritual  impulse  which  carries  them  into 
this  chivalrous  service.  The  missionary 
boards  would  never  think  of  looking  anywhere 
else  for  them.  This  sort  of  material  is  not 
produced  anywhere  else.  It  cannot  be  found 
in  some  lovely  grass  plot  of  spiritual  produc- 
tiveness lying  quite  outside  of  the  much- 
maligned  church  of  Christ. 

The  social  settlement,  with  all  its  excellent 
qualities,  if  called  upon  for  candidates  to 
swelter  on  the  Congo,  or  to  shiver  in  Alaska 
or  Labrador,  or  to  face  and  relieve  the  dirt 
and  the  squalor,  the  disease  and  the  vice  of 

7 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

the  crowded  sections  of  the  Orient,  or  to 
brave  the  attacks  of  Boxers  in  China,  or  the 
horrors  of  Armenian  massacres,  would  be 
swift  to  say,  "  It  is  not  in  me."  The  labor 
union  would  speedily  add,  "  It  is  not  in  me." 
This  army  of  the  choicest  young  people  we 
know,  enlisting  for  a  warfare  in  which  there 
is  no  discharge,  going  out  to  minister  to 
people  whose  faces  they  have  never  seen, 
whose  names  they  do  not  know,  whose  lan- 
guage they  cannot  as  yet  speak,  but  whose 
needs  they  have  already  made  their  own  in 
warm,  unselfish  sympathy,  comes  forth  stead- 
ily from  those  churches  which  have,  according 
to  the  critics,  become  "  so  feeble  "  —  I 
quote  again  —  "as  to  have  no  ethical  en- 
thusiasm for  anything  except  negative  ideals 
of  individual  behavior." 

The  same  sound  principle  holds  in  the  work 
of  the  kingdom  here  in  our  own  land.  I 
was  president  for  many  years  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Home  Missionary  Society.  It  was 
part  of  my  duty  to  travel  among  the  wide 
wheat  ranches  and  the  lumber  camps  and 
the  mining  towns  of  that  far-flung  state. 
I  have  been  in  the  homes  and  in  the  churches 
of  the  self-denying  men  and  women  who  are 
rendering  there  an  honored  service  as  am- 
bassadors of  Christ.  Their  labor  lacks  some- 
thing of  the  romantic  picturesqueness  which 

8 


Honoring  the  Church 

attaches  to  the  work  of  those  who  are  in 
foreign  lands  with  people  of  alien  race;  but 
for  heroism,  unselfish  devotion,  patient 
fidelity,  and  sympathetic  interest  in  the 
needs  of  their  fellows,  I  know  of  nothing 
finer  in  American  history  than  the  action  of 
those  home  missionaries  as  it  bears  upon 
laying  the  foundations  of  the  Republic  on 
solid  rock  rather  than  in  fleeting  sand.  I 
am  confident  that  the  home  missionaries 
of  our  country  would  yield  as  many  bushels 
to  the  acre  of  courage,  fidelity,  loyalty,  and 
willingness  to  die  for  their  cause  as  any  body 
of  people  to  be  found  anywhere. 

It  is  not  expedient  for  me  to  glory  or  to 
think  more  highly  of  my  fellow  Christians 
than  I  ought  to  think.  The  churches  of 
our  day  show  no  celestial  perfection.  They 
cannot  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  without 
spot  or  blemish  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing, 
so  long  as  they  maintain  the  cheerful  habit 
of  receiving  human  beings  into  their  mem- 
bership. They  are  made  up  of  men  and 
women  like  ourselves,  people  whose  mental 
and  spiritual  limitations  are  instantly  appar- 
ent. And  in  almost  every  church  there  is 
given  unto  us  "  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  a  mes- 
senger of  Satan  to  buffet  us,"  lest  we  should 
be  exalted  above  measure.  But  when  the 
returns  are  all  in,  the  sheep  and  the  goats 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

told  off  and  counted  up,  is  not  the  church 
of  Christ  about  the  divinest  thing  we  have 
here  on  earth  at  the  present  time?  Name 
any  other  organization  which  can  spell  it 
down  in  moral  idealism  and  in  useful  conduct. 
It  is  the  one  institution  we  have  which  is 
bold  enough  to  accept  the  social  ideal,  not 
piecemeal  in  specialized  lines  of  effort,  but 
in  its  entirety.  It  has  the  moral  courage  to 
look  up  into  the  face  of  the  Infinite  Perfec- 
tion of  God  and  say,  "  Thy  kingdom  come. 
Thy  will  be  done  here  on  earth  as  it  is  done 
in  heaven." 

Have  we  not  had  about  enough  of  this 
wholesale  abuse  of  organized  religion?  It 
gives  great  satisfaction  in  certain  quarters, 
but  they  are  not  the  quarters  to  which  the 
poor  world  looks  for  its  spiritual  help.  Might 
we  not  take  a  hint  from  the  ethics  of  the 
medical  profession?  The  physicians  are  not 
"  stabbing  each  other  awake  "  —  I  quote 
again  from  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  They  are 
not  bringing  discredit  on  their  profession  by 
casting  widespread  aspersions  on  their  fellow 
practitioners.  In  dignified  fashion  they  do 
sometimes  warn  the  public  against  the 
methods  of  ignorant  and  unprincipled  quacks. 
But  that  is  not  a  case  in  point.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  Christian  ministry  is  not  made  up 
of  quacks.  It  is  upon  the  regular  practi- 

10 


Honoring  the  Church 

tioners  that  these  essayists  (themselves  oft- 
times  ministers  of  Christ)  are  bringing  re- 
proach by  ill-advised  and  unjust  arraign- 
ment of  their  brother  ministers.  I  commend 
to  their  serious  consideration  the  usage  which 
prevails  among  the  apostles  of  the  healing 
art,  so  closely  akin  to  our  own  cure  of  souls. 

Now  having  made  my  protest  against  the 
thoughtless,  reckless  impeachment  of  the 
honor  of  the  Protestant  Church  in  America, 
I  would  like  to  say  three  plain  words  about 
the  church  life  which  we  are  set  to  lead. 
There  are  churches,  alas,  which  cumber  the 
ground.  They  are  fruitless  branches  cling- 
ing in  desperate  fashion  to  the  True  Vine. 
It  is  high  time  they  were  either  purged  or 
cut  off.  There  are  men  in  the  ministry  who 
by  reason  of  their  listlessness  and  inefficiency 
are  actually  doing  more  harm  than  good. 

The  young  men  in  the  theological  schools 
are  to  be  trained  and  made  more  competent 
as  leaders  in  the  church  of  Christ.  The 
pastors  in  active  service  are  to  show  them- 
selves "  approved  unto  God,  workmen  that 
need  not  be  ashamed,  rightly  dividing  the 
word  of  truth."  Let  them  all  stand  ready 
to  "  endure  hardness  as  good  soldiers  of 
Jesus  Christ,"  accepting  loyally  and  gladly 
all  the  disciplines,  physical  and  mental, 
social  and  spiritual,  which  may  mean  added 

ii 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

efficiency.  The  end  they  seek  is  "  charity 
out  of  a  pure  heart  and  a  good  conscience, 
and  a  faith  unfeigned,"  with  no  sham,  pre- 
tense or  make-believe  about  it.  Let  them 
watch,  then,  in  all  things,  and  make  full 
proof  of  their  power  to  serve  aright  the  needs 
of  their  fellow -beings. 

We  are  to  make  the  church  of  Christ  inter- 
esting. Jesus  Christ  himself  is  interesting. 
Lift  him  up  anywhere  so  that  people  can  see 
him  as  he  is,  and  he  draws  men  to  him.  The 
gospel  he  preached  is  interesting.  For  spiri- 
tual insight  and  for  beauty  of  form,  for 
strength  and  delicacy  combined,  and  for 
sheer  human  interest,  there  are  no  words  to 
be  found  in  print  which  surpass  the  words 
of  Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake. 

Religion  is  interesting.  The  human  soul 
in  its  relations  to  God  in  that  great  moral 
order  which  enfolds  us;  the  human  soul  in 
its  relations  to  other  lives  in  that  great  social 
order  which  enfolds  us;  the  human  soul  in 
its  high  privileges  of  self-realization  through 
all  of  those  aids,  human  and  divine,  which 
religion  offers  in  the  fullness  of  their  power 
—  there  is  no  other  single  aspect  of  life 
which  can  compare  for  one  moment  with  all 
that  for  interest.  In  the  face  of  the  challenge 
which  all  this  offers  to  our  best  powers  at 
their  best,  the  man  who  allows  his  preaching 

12 


Honoring  the  Church 

to  become  dull,  prosy,  unappealing,  lifeless, 
ought  to  be  cast  out  of  the  synagogue  as  a 
heathen  man  and  a  publican.  He  has  denied 
the  faith. 

When  Charles  A.  Dana  was  editor  of  the 
New  York  Sun,  he  was  a  man  in  a  thousand 
in  a  newspaper  office.  He  was,  as  one  of 
his  honored  associates  has  said,  "  a  man  of 
scholarly  attainments,  of  inborn  refinement, 
and  of  supreme  ability  to  transfer  his  great 
knowledge  to  every  column  of  his  newspaper." 
He  believed  that  the  newspaper  is  a  great 
educator,  greater  as  an  educator  of  the  masses 
than  the  pulpit  or  the  lecture  room,  because 
it  talks  to  such  a  wide  audience.  He  believed 
that  its  influence,  read  as  it  is  by  old  and 
young,  by  boys  and  girls  as  well  as  by  men 
and  women,  should  be  thoroughly  clean  and 
wholesome.  Then  on  that  secure  founda- 
tion he  was  intent  on  building  the  structure 
of  a  paper  that  people  would  take  and  read. 
"  Make  the  Sun  interesting,"  he  was  forever 
saying  to  his  staff,  "  make  the  Sun  interest- 
ing. The  people  will  not  read  dull,  poky, 
porous  stuff  —  hoot  it  out  of  the  place." 
Let  ministers  and  laymen  join  hands  to  make 
the  church  interesting,  and  people  will  come 
to  it;  and  what  is  still  more  to  the  purpose, 
they  will  be  profited  by  their  coming. 

Let  the  church  be  made  vital.     We  are 

13 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

not  dealing  mainly  with  Rehoboam  and 
Jeroboam,  who  are  safely  dead  and  buried. 
We  are  not  concerned  chiefly  with  the  mum- 
mies of  Egypt  which  Moses  may  have  seen 
when  he  was  an  unwilling  resident  of  the 
Nile  Delta.  We  are  dealing  with  men  and 
women,  young  men  and  maidens,  boys  and 
girls,  who  are  more  or  less  alive.  We  are 
set  to  make  them  alive  at  more  points,  alive 
on  higher  levels,  alive  in  more  interesting 
and  worthy  ways.  We  are  the  servants  and 
followers  of  Him  who  said,  touching  his  own 
fundamental  purpose,  "  I  am  come  that 
they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly."  Whatever  else 
it  may  or  may  not  be,  the  church  which  bears 
his  name  must  be  vital. 

We  cannot  have  a  congregation  of  intelli- 
gent Twentieth  Century  Americans  on  their 
toes  over  some  skilful  defense  of  a  particular 
mode  of  baptism  or  over  some  particular 
theory  as  to  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.  We  cannot  send  "  a  thrill  of  life 
along  their  keels  "or  "  launch  them  out 
into  the  deep  '  by  warming  up  some  old 
doctrinal  squabble  which  may  have  caused 
men  to  grow  red  in  the  face  in  the  time  of 
Athanasius.  We  cannot  stir  them  to  action 
by  brandishing  before  their  eyes  the  moral 
shortcomings  of  the  Hivites  or  the  Girga- 


Honoring  the  Church 

shites.  Their  reaction  to  such  appeals  will 
never  be  such  as  to  break  out  the  ends  of  the 
pews.  But  the  sorrows  and  struggles  which 
those  people  are  undergoing  now,  the  duties 
and  temptations  which  they  are  facing  now, 
the  opportunities  and  high  privileges  which 
lie  before  them  now  in  this  intricate  and  chal- 
lenging modern  life  of  ours  —  all  that  en- 
nobled, enriched,  and  glorified  by  being  shot 
through  with  the  truth  and  grace  of  the  gospel 
of  the  Son  of  God,  will  bring  them  out  of  their 
chambers,  rejoicing  as  strong  men  to  run  a 
race.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
the  activities  of  the  church  in  its  worship 
and  in  its  work  should  deal  with  that  which 
is  vital. 

Let  the  church  be  made  religious!  This 
might  seem  to  go  without  saying.  Alas! 
would  that  it  did!  There  are  churches  — 
you  have  seen  them  and  I  have  seen  them  — 
which  do  not  by  the  sort  of  service  they  offer 
make  men  aware  of  their  souls,  aware  of  God, 
aware  of  their  high  privilege  in  him  and  of 
their  capacity  to  wear  increasingly  h  s  like- 
ness and  image.  In  those  dead-and-alive 
churches  there  is  not,  as  men  used  to  say  of 
the  service  conducted  n  the  city  of  London 
by  Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  "  the  sense 
of  something  which  is  not  of  this  world." 
The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  place  is  of  the 

15 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

earth  earthy,  and  the  poor  attendants  at 
that  church  seem  to  be  buried  in  it,  beyond 
the  hope  of  a  resurrection. 

Let  me  quote  a  single  paragraph  from  a 
recent  popular  and  widely  read  novel.  The 
man  who  is  speaking  is  a  soldier  who  has 
come  back  from  the  Great  War,  wounded 
and  maimed  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  He  is 
blurting  out  to  his  chum  what  he  feels  in  the 
depths  of  his  own  soul : 

11  What  the  world  needs  is  the  old  God! 
Man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone,  the  churches 
tell  him;  but  the  man  says,  '  I  am  living  on 
bread  alone,  and  I  am  thriving  on  it.'  Yet 
away  down  in  the  crypt  and  abyss  of  every 
man's  soul  is  a  hunger  and  a  craving  for  other 
food  than  this  earthy  stuff.  And  the  churches, 
instead  of  reaching  down  to  him  what  he 
wants,  invite  him  to  dancing,  and  picture 
shows,  and  '  you're  a  jolly  good  fellow,'  and 

I  religion  is  a  jolly  fine  thing  and  no  spoil- 
sport,' and   all  that  sort  of  latter-day  ten- 
dency.    Damn  it  "  —  I  am  quoting  the  sol- 
dier and  I  must  use  the  words    he    used  — 

II  Damn  it,  the  man  can  get  all  that  outside  of 
the  churches  and  get  it  better.     He  wants 
light.     He  wants  God.     The  preachers  call 
it  '  making  religion  a  living  thing  in  the  lives 
of   the    people.'     '  Lift   up    your    hearts    to 
God,'  they  say;    but  there  is  no  God  there 

16 


Honoring  the  Church 

that  a  plain  man  can  understand  to  be  lifted 
up  to." 

The  church  above  all  else  is  a  place  to  dis- 
pense religion.  It  is  a  place  of  prayer.  It 
is  the  house  of  God.  It  is  the  gate  of  heaven. 
It  is  the  high  office  of  the  church  through  its 
appointed  services  of  worship  to  lift  men 
into  the  sense  of  kinship  with  the  Eternal, 
into  a  feeling  of  co-operation  with  their  Maker, 
into  the  joy  of  participation  in  an  august 
spiritual  enterprise  where  God,  the  Father, 
is  above  all  and  through  all  and  in  them  all. 
To  know,  to  do,  and  to  enjoy  all  this  is  to  be 
religious. 

Let  the  church  be  made  interesting!  Let 
the  church  be  made  vital !  Let  the  church  be 
made  religious!  The  Lord  will  add  daily  to 
that  church  people  who  are  being  saved. 


BUILDING  THE  CHURCH 


II 
Building  the  Church 

WHEN  the  Master  was  here  he  set 
lame  men  on  their  feet  and  bade 
them  walk.  He  opened  the  eyes  of 
the  blind  and  unstopped  the  ears  of  the  deaf, 
causing  men  to  see  and  to  hear  what  they  had 
never  seen  nor  heard  before.  He  sometimes 
fed  the  hungry.  He  occasionally  gave  an 
address  to  a  crowd  in  the  open  air.  But  his 
main  interest  during  the  last  two  years  of  his 
public  ministry  is  indicated  by  those  familiar 
words  addressed  to  Peter,  "  I  will  build  my 
church." 

He  was  building  a  church.  I  do  not  mean 
a  stone  structure  with  a  spire  on  it  —  one  can- 
not build  a  church  out  of  stone,  or  boards,  or 
bricks.  With  that  material  one  can  only 
build  the  building  where  some  church  may 
meet.  The  church  itself  is  built  out  of  men 
and  women,  young  men  and  maidens,  boys 
and  girls,  who  have  seen  in  Christ  what  Peter 
saw  in  him,  who  have  declared  their  loyalty 
to  him  as  Peter  declared  his  loyalty,  who  are 
undertaking  to  live  in  that  same  high  mood. 
Out  of  that  sort  of  material  and  on  that 
foundation,  he  will  build  his  church. 

21 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

When  I  speak  of  the  Master  focussing  his 
efforts  on  the  building  of  a  church,  I  am  not 
thinking  of  anything  intensely  ecclesiastical. 
He  had  almost  nothing  to  say  about  polity 
or  ritual  or  creed  statement.  When  men 
undertake  to  discuss  those  questions  which 
have  so  often  divided  Christians  into  con- 
tending groups,  they  do  not  find  much  ma- 
terial for  their  mighty  arguments  in  the  four 
Gospels.  Jesus  was  bent  upon  gathering  a 
group  of  men  and  women  —  it  was  never  a 
very  large  group  in  his  day  —  whose  minds 
were  saturated  with  his  ideas,  whose  hearts 
were  steeped  in  his  spirit,  who  were  striving 
to  live  the  life  as  he  manifested  it  and  im- 
parted it. 

He  wrote  no  books;  he  created  no  endow- 
ments; he  led  no  armies.  He  never  under- 
took to  change  the  form  of  government 
under  which  his  people  lived,  but  he  did 
build  a  church.  Then  he  stood  back,  ready  to 
stake  the  whole  future  of  his  cause  upon  what 
that  church  would  do  and  be.  "I  will 
build  my  church,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  it."  Its  influence  was 
to  be  like  leaven  permeating  the  whole  lump 
of  human  life.  It  was  to  go  into  all  the  world 
and  disciple  the  nations,  baptizing  them 
into  a  new  spirit. 

The  Master  recognized  the  plain  necessity 
22 


Building  the  Church 

for  organized  effort.  One  cannot  sing  an 
oratorio  all  by  himself,  I  care  not  how  splen- 
did his  voice  may  be.  He  must  merge  his 
voice  in  a  chorus  of  voices.  One  cannot 
render  the  Fifth  Symphony,  or  the  Ninth, 
by  himself,  I  care  not  how  well  he  may  play 
on  some  single  instrument.  He  must  blend 
his  efforts  with  those  of  an  entire  orchestra. 
The  modern  achievements  in  commerce  and 
in  manufacture  have  only  been  made  possible 
because  men  have  learned  to  unite  their 
forces  and  to  act  together.  The  same  sound 
principle  holds  when  we  come  to  sing  the 
Lord's  song  and  to  do  the  Lord's  work.  It 
can  only  be  done  where  men  and  women 
come  together,  are  agreed,  and  begin  to  act 
in  concert  as  members  of  the  body  of  Christ. 
It  might  seem  as  if  all  that  would  go  with- 
out saying.  Alas,  no!  Would  that  it  did! 
We  live  at  a  time  when  in  many  quarters 
organized  religion  is  held  in  contempt.  You 
will  hear  light-headed  and  light-hearted 
people  speak  in  glowing  terms  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  then  with  the  last  half  of  the  same  breath 
speak  contemptuously  of  the  church.  We 
are  often  told  in  breezy  fashion  that  it  does 
not  matter  the  least  bit  whether  one  belongs 
to  the  church  or  not,  that  it  does  not  matter 
whether  he  has  been  baptized  or  takes  com- 
munion, —  that  on  the  whole  it  is  rather 

23 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

better,  perhaps,  if  he  has  not  done  any  of  these 
things!  You  will  hear  young  men  with 
some  measure  of  moral  aspiration  declaring 
themselves  after  this  fashion:  '  I  want  to 
do  good  in  the  world.  I  want  to  live  a 
Christian  life.  But  I  will  not  belong  to  any 
church.  I  will  not  make  any  professions. 
You  see,  I  do  not  want  to  get  my  lines  crossed. 
I  propose  to  stand  out  free  and  clear,  living 
my  own  life  and  doing  my  own  work  in  my 
own  way." 

It  might  be  well  to  remind  all  such  people 
that  this  was  not  the  attitude  of  Christ  him- 
self. The  church  of  his  day  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  so  sincere,  so  well-behaved  nor 
so  well  stocked  with  humane  impulse  as  the 
church  of  our  day,  yet  he  belonged  to  it. 
He  was  a  churchman.  It  was  his  custom 
to  enter  the  synagogue  on  the  sabbath.  He 
observed  the  festivals  of  the  Jewish  church. 
He  utilized  the  opportunities  it  offered  for 
moral  effort.  His  last  act,  almost,  was  to 
celebrate  the  Passover  with  his  disciples  and 
to  take  the  bread  and  wine  of  a  new  covenant 
as  a  member  of  the  church.  He  did  all  this 
because  his  life  was  ruled  by  judgment  and 
conscience. 

We  were  at  war  the  other  day  with  Ger- 
many. Suppose  you  had  met  some  patriotic 
young  fellow  in  those  days  in  civilian  dress, 

24 


Building  the  Church 

but  with  a  gun  on  his  shoulder!  Suppose 
he  had  told  you  that  he  was  on  his  way  to 
France.  '  But  where  is  your  uniform?" 
you  would  have  asked.  '  To  what  company 
do  you  belong,  to  what  regiment?"  Then 
he  might  have  answered  in  this  vein  of  modern 
individualism,  "  Oh,  I  do  not  belong  to  any 
company.  I  do  not  wear  any  uniform.  I 
do  not  make  any  professions  about  being  a 
soldier.  You  see,  I  do  not  want  to  get  my 
lines  crossed.  But  I  love  my  country  and  I 
am  on  my  way  to  France  to  see  if  I  cannot 
pick  off  a  German  or  two  on  my  own  account." 
His  folly  would  have  made  you  laugh. 
No  competent  government  on  earth  would 
have  allowed  him  to  go.  Had  he  been 
allowed  to  go,  his  unorganized  presence  there 
in  any  considerable  numbers  would  have  been 
a  hindrance  to  the  work  of  the  regular  troops. 
The  man  of  sense  fights  always  with  the 
army. 

Now  we  are  at  war  with  the  evil  of  the 
world,  and  it  is  no  child's  play.  We  see  lined 
up  against  us  not  only  huge  masses  of  flesh 
and  blood  headed  wrong;  we  battle  with 
'  principalities  and  powers,  with  the  rulers  of 
darkness  in  this  world  and  with  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places."  The  very  vague- 
ness of  the  apostle's  language  indicated  his 
sense  of  something  mysterious,  ominous, 

25 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

deadly,  standing  over  against  us.  In  the 
face  of  all  that  opposition  to  the  divine  pur- 
pose, the  victory  for  righteousness  cannot 
be  won  in  any  haphazard  fashion,  each  man 
going  his  own  gait  and  way.  The  winning 
of  that  victory  calls  for  discipline  and  con- 
certed effort  on  the  part  of  all  those  who 
believe  that  the  spirit  which  comes  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister  is  Lord  of 
life,  and  that  before  it  every  knee  should  bow. 
At  this  very  hour  the  Head  of  the  church 
is  reaching  out  for  members  of  his  body. 
He  would  have  us  belong  to  him  as  my  hand 
belongs  to  me.  He  is  building  his  church 
out  of  such  offered  material. 

The  words  of  the  Master  emphasize  also 
the  value  of  fellowship  in  a  common  task. 
The  Christian  does  not  grow  in  isolation  or 
in  a  vacuum.  He  is  a  plant  which  the 
heavenly  Father  planted  and  he  is  meant  to 
bear  fruit.  He  must  of  necessity  have  soil 
and  atmosphere  and  climate  suited  to  his 
growth  as  a  plant.  The  soil  where  the 
Christian  thrives,  the  atmosphere  which  he 
recognizes  as  his  native  air,  the  climate 
which  best  ministers  to  his  unfolding,  are  all 
to  be  found  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Christian 
church  as  they  are  found  nowhere  else.  Here 
is  the  house  of  his  habitation,  the  place  where 
the  divine  honor  dwelleth,  the  atmosphere  of 

26 


Building  the  Church 

devotion  and  the  company  of  those  who  are 
wont  to  call  upon  his  name. 

The  longer  I  live  and  the  more  closely  I 
study  those  efforts  which  really  count,  the 
more  clearly  do  I  recognize  the  importance 
of  putting  one's  life  into  some  institution 
which  will  continue  when  the  man  himself 
is  gone.  The  influence  of  the  free-lance  is 
short-lived,  I  care  not  how  sharp  a  lance  he 
may  have  been  or  what  a  merry  time  he  may 
have  had  for  his  brief  hour  upon  the  stage. 
The  work  which  will  add  up  large  in  the  Day 
of  Judgment  is  the  work  of  the  man  who 
merges  and  blends  his  efforts  with  the  efforts 
of  other  men  in  such  a  way  that  something 
results  which  is  massive,  corporate,  enduring. 
The  whole  body  fitly  joined  together  and 
compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  sup- 
plieth  becomes  the  dwelling-place  of  those 
forces  which  are  to  realize  the  divine  purpose. 

"  I  am  doing  a  great  work,"  a  young  man 
once  said,  "  I  cannot  come  down."  He  was 
laying  bricks.  But  every  brick  went  into  a 
wall  with  thousands  of  other  bricks.  The 
wall  surrounded  a  city  as  its  chief  defence. 
The  city  was  Jerusalem,  the  capital  of  that 
race  which  took  the  right  of  the  line  in  the 
moral  leadership  of  the  world  for  centuries. 
When  we  remember  that  the  Jews  wrote  this 
book  of  final  values  for  all  who  would  live 

27 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

nobly  and  that  the  Son  of  Man  was  born  a 
Jew  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea,  we  feel  that  the 
young  man  did  not  overstate  it.  To  lay 
bricks  in  the  wall  of  a  city  like  that  was  a 
great  work. 

11  I  am  doing  a  great  work,"  some  man  says 
now.  He  may  be  teaching  Greek  or  geome- 
try, but  he  is  building  his  ideals  and  principles, 
his  methods  and  aspirations  into  the  unfold- 
ing lives  of  a  whole  generation  of  young 
people  who  are  just  coming  into  their  own. 
He  is  making  himself  an  essential  part  of  an 
institution  which  is  to  set  its  seal  upon  the 
life  of  a  nation. 

"  I  am  doing  a  great  work,"  some  man  says 
who  is  striving  to  transform  business  into  a 
profession,  with  its  own  high  standard  of 
ethics,  its  own  worthy  objective.  He  is 
striving  to  make  his  own  business  a  social 
utility,  a  place  for  the  expression  of  good- 
will, a  local  contribution  to  the  solution  of 
that  problem  of  industrial  organization  which 
is  so  vast  and  so  intricate. 

'  I  am  doing  a  great  work,"  some  man  says 
in  a  lonely,  struggling  little  parish  in  the 
country.  He  is  preaching  sermons,  calling 
upon  the  sick  and  making  friends  with  boys 
and  girls.  But  in  doing  all  this  he  is  strength- 
ening the  line  of  that  institution  which 
reaches  out  into  all  the  cities  of  the  land  and 

28 


Building  the  Church 

into  all  the  lands  of  earth  seeking  to  estab- 
lish the  rule  of  the  divine  spirit  in  the  lives 
of  men.  He  has  made  stronger  in  its  reach 
and  grasp  the  work  of  that  institution  whose 
influence  will  continue  long  after  he  has  been 
gathered  to  his  fathers. 

There  is  something  inspiring  in  that  sense 
of  participation  in  any  far-reaching  and  au- 
gust enterprise.  I  have  felt  it  in  many  parts 
of  the  world  touching  this  interest  of  public 
worship.  I  have  listened  reverently  to  the 
service  of  the  Mass  according  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  ritual  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  and  I 
have  heard  a  choir  of  a  hundred  men  and 
boys  chanting  the  service  of  the  Greek  church 
in  the  Cathedral  of  the  Kremlin  at  Moscow. 
I  have  heard  the  call  to  prayer  from  the  min- 
arets of  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  in  Con- 
stantinople and  I  have  watched  the  faces  of 
devout  Jews  at  the  fragment  of  the  old  tem- 
ple enclosure  at  the  Jews'  Wailing  Place  in 
Jerusalem.  I  have  studied  the  stolid  faces 
of  the  Chinese  in  their  joss-houses  in  old 
Shanghai,  and  I  have  seen  the  faces  of  the 
Buddhist  priests  as  they  conducted  worship 
in  the  great  Hongwanji  temples  in  Japan. 
And  although  in  every  case  the  mode  of 
worship  and  the  language  in  which  it  was 
offered  were  alien  to  me,  I  felt  in  my  own 
heart  a  sense  of  sympathy  with  it  all.  There 

29 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

was  in  me,  as  in  them,  the  same  feeling  of 
dependence  upon  a  higher  Power,  the  same 
sense  of  kinship  with  the  Eternal,  the  same 
hunger  for  a  closer  relation  to  the  divine 
Being  who  can  minister  to  our  good.  How 
strange  and  abnormal  I  should  have  felt  had 
I  never  shared  in  that  hunger  of  the  heart! 

How  much  it  means  when  we  stand  up  as 
Christians  of  every  type  and  of  all  lands,  say- 
ing to  that  sordid  materialism  which  is  the 
bane  of  so  much  of  our  modern  life,  "  We 
believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty  and  in 
Jesus  Christ  his  Son  our  Lord.  We  believe 
in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Author  and  Giver  of 
life  which  is  life  indeed  "!  How  much  it 
means  when  we  say  in  corporate  fashion  to 
those  petty  individuals  who  are  too  blind  to 
recognize  the  value  of  associated  effort, 
"  We  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church, 
the  communion  of  saints"!  How  much  it 
means  when  we  say  to  that  mode  of  life 
which  crawls  when  it  might  walk  in  high 
places  with  its  head  up,  "  We  believe  in  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  and  the  life  everlasting  "!  And  into 
all  this  richer  experience  we  enter  when  we 
become  members  of  the  body  of  Christ,  shar- 
ing in  the  confessions  and  the  worship,  in 
the  aspiration  and  the  service  of  the  church 
of  the  living  God. 

30 


Building  the  Church 

Here  is  the  church  of  Christ  also  proclaim- 
ing those  standards  which  are  ultimate  and 
final.  "  A  new  commandment  give  I  unto 
you,  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I  have  loved 
you."  It  is  a  final  word.  "  Ye  therefore 
shall  be  perfect  as  your  father  in  heaven  is 
perfect."  It  is  a  final  word.  "  Because  he 
lives  we  shall  live  also  and  always."  It  is 
a  final  word.  "  It  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be,  but  we  know  that  when  we  see 
him  as  he  is  we  shall  be  like  him."  The 
church  would  have  every  man  wear  nothing 
less  than  the  likeness  of  the  Most  High.  Its 
prayer  is  that  we  might  all  be  strengthened 
with  might  by  his  spirit  in  the  inner  man. 
Its  supreme  interest  is  character. 

Now  you  will  all  agree  that  the  sorest  need 
of  the  world  is  to  be  found  at  this  point.  In 
the  summer  of  1914  the  countries  in  Central 
Europe  had  brains  enough,  wealth  enough, 
brawn  enough,  to  have  ushered  in  the  mil- 
lennium if  millenniums  ever  could  be  ushered 
in  by  those  agencies  alone.  They  had  enough 
of  huge  armanents,  of  secret  diplomacy  and 
of  that  spirit  of  competition  which  is  supposed 
to  be  "  the  life  of  trade."  The  sad  fact  was 
that  they  did  not  have  character  enough,  and 
so  what  they  did  usher  in  was  not  the  mil- 
lennium but  seven  long,  sad  years  of  perdition, 
-  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  Wise  enough, 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

rich  enough,  strong  enough,  but  not  good 
enough  to  do  what  they  ought  to  have  done! 

Here  at  this  hour  in  our  own  land  we  have 
resources  enough,  man-power  enough,  organ- 
izing administrative  ability  enough,  to  cover 
the  country  with  peace  and  prosperity  as  the 
waters  cover  the  sea.  But  we  have  not  char- 
acter enough.  We  have  not  enough  of  the 
sense  of  social  justice,  enough  of  respect  for 
the  rights  and  interests  of  the  other  man  and 
the  other  class,  enough  of  the  spirit  of  good- 
will in  which  alone  our  problems  can  be  solved, 
enough  of  the  sense  of  obligation  to  the  com- 
mon good.  So  in  place  of  peace  and  pros- 
perity we  have  unrest  and  in  many  quarters 
unreason,  and  a  spirit  steadily  at  work  be- 
neath the  surface  of  our  American  life  which 
is  a  menace  to  the  health  of  the  nation.  We 
are  not  good  enough  to  do  what  ought  to  be 
done. 

What  an  hour  for  an  institution  ordained 
of  God  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  to  cast 
out  the  devils  of  ill-will  and  to  cleanse  men 
from  the  leprosy  of  sordid  selfishness!  These 
vexed  questions  can  never  be  solved  on  the 
basis  of  some  more  skilful  form  of  economic 
organization  or  by  some  clever  political  device. 
They  can  only  be  solved  upon  the  basis  of  a 
finer  type  of  personal  character  and  by  the 
steady  expression  of  a  more  social  habit  of 

mind. 

32 


Building  the  Church 

We  are  all  members  one  of  another,  whether 
we  like  it  or  not.  If  one  member  suffers,  all 
the  other  members  suffer  with  it.  The  head, 
in  the  great  economic  order  which  enfolds  us, 
cannot  say  to  the  feet,  the  highest  cannot  say 
to  the  lowest,  nor  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
"  We  have  no  need  of  you."  We  can  only 
advance  and  prosper  as  we  advance  together. 
And  all  this  is  only  a  roundabout  way  of  say- 
ing what  the  Master  said  in  so  much  better 
language,  "  This  is  the  first  and  great  com- 
mandment, '  Love  God  with  all  your  heart. 
And  the  second  is  like  unto  it,  Love  your 
neighbor  as  yourself.'*  On  these  two  hangs 
all  there  is. 

With  all  its  present  limitations  I  cannot 
believe  that  the  church  is  altogether  blind  to 
that  vision  or  indifferent  to  its  obligation. 
Many  organizations  honored  and  beloved 
have  done  well.  They  have  attacked  the 
evil  of  the  world  piecemeal.  They  have  un- 
dertaken some  single  item  of  human  better- 
ment, the  outlawing  of  the  open  saloon,  the 
better  housing  of  the  toilers,  better  sanitary 
conditions  in  the  factories,  better  wages  for 
some  group  or  class,  the  banishment  of  or- 
ganized and  profitable  vice.  All  this  is  good ; 
but  the  church  is  the  one  institution  on  earth 
which  has  had  courage  enough  to  stand  up 
and  accept  the  social  ideal  in  its  entirety. 

33 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

It  looks  up  into  the  face  of  the  perfect  God 
and  says,  "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth." 
It  will  never  cease  to  offer  that  prayer  nor 
to  hold  fast  to  that  high  resolve  until  that 
sublime  end  shall  have  been  achieved.  And 
it  is  able  to  hold  true  to  that  course  because 
it  puts  first  that  which  is  first  —  it  makes 
character  its  supreme  interest. 

In  any  community  there  are  many  common 
interests.  Some  of  them  are  social,  some 
industrial,  some  political  and  some  educa- 
tional. High  up  among  them  stands  the 
church  of  Christ,  pledged  to  the  spiritual  in- 
terests of  the  people.  It  is  there  to  deepen 
their  sense  of  the  presence  of  God.  It  is 
there  to  uncover  for  them  profounder  sources 
of  motive  and  stimulus,  so  that  the  zest  and 
relish  of  living  may  not  fail  when  those  years 
come  where  so  many  people  say,  "  We  have 
no  pleasure  in  them."  It  is  there  to  inter- 
pret and  consecrate  all  these  social  contacts 
which  furnish  the  raw  material  out  of  which 
character  is  built.  It  is  there  to  steady 
and  strengthen  the  common  aspiration  for 
that  which  is  just,  true,  and  clean,  for  that 
which  is  honorable,  reputable  and  lovable. 
It  seeks  for  nothing  less  than  to  bring  the 
actions  of  men  "  up  to  the  style  and  manners 
of  the  sky." 

It  is  a  time  for  every  church  to  be  alive 

34 


Building  the  Church 

and  alert.  "  Every  branch  that  beareth 
not  fruit  he  taketh  away."  There  is  neither 
room  nor  soil  in  the  garden  of  God  for  fruit- 
less lives.  "  Every  branch  that  beareth 
fruit  he  purgeth  that  it  may  bear  more  fruit." 
During  the  last  seven  years  the  nations  have 
been  clipped  and  pruned;  they  have  been 
purged  and  sprayed  by  the  searching  disci- 
pline through  which  they  have  passed.  Now 
that  "  the  staleness  of  those  soft,  sleek,  sordid 
years  of  low  content  "  has  gone,  the  hour  has 
struck  for  a  spiritual  advance.  There  is  a 
loud  call  for  a  more  abundant  supply  of  all 
those  fine  fruits  of  the  spirit.  And  it  is  the 
task  of  the  church  which  the  Lord  is  building 
afresh  in  these  searching  times  to  increase 
the  yield  of  fruit  on  every  field  of  human 
interest. 

It  is  a  sacred  task  to  build  a  building  where 
some  church  may  meet  and  minister  to  the 
souls  of  men.  When  a  group  of  people  have 
thus  lodged  in  brick  and  stone,  in  stained 
glass  and  carved  wood,  their  abiding  concern 
for  the  higher  life  of  the  community,  they 
have  achieved  something  upon  which  they 
may  well  look  back  in  thoughtful,  reverent 
joy. 

But  finer  still  is  the  high  privilege  of  acting 
with  Him  in  building  the  church  itself.  To 
have  even  the  humblest  part  in  creating 

35 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

that  body  of  people  who  are  fitly  framed  to- 
gether by  a  common  purpose  and  are  com- 
pacted into  a  sacred  fellowship  by  that  which 
every  joint  supplieth  is  the  highest  sort  of 
privilege.  When  that  great  work  is  in  pro- 
gress we  have  indeed  a  building  of  God,  a 
house  not  made  with  hands,  a  habitation  of 
the  Spirit,  eternal  in  the  realm  of  those 
values  which  endure. 

"  Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 
As  the  swift  seasons  roll, 
Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past, 
Let  each  new  temple  nobler  than  the  last 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 
Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 

Leaving  thine  outgrown   shell  by  life's  unresting 
sea." 


BELONGING    TO  THE   CHURCH 


Ill 
Belonging  to  the  Church 

HOW  much  is  suggested  by  that  easy 
current  phrase,  "  I  belong  to  the 
church."  My  hand  belongs  to  me 
as  a  part  of  my  body.  It  sustains  an  organic, 
vital  relation  to  the  body  and  to  all  the  other 
members  of  that  body.  It  derives  its  sus- 
tenance from  the  vital  processes  operating 
in  the  body.  It  acts  in  the  light  of  all  that 
stands  revealed  by  the  eyes  of  that  body. 
It  enjoys  the  guidance  afforded  by  the  head 
of  the  body.  It  shares  in  the  hurt  and  loss 
or  in  the  honor  and  gain  which  belong  to  the 
body. 

In  like  manner,  when  tl  I  belong  to  the 
church,"  I  become  a  member  of  the  body  of 
Christ.  I  belong  to  him  who  is  the  Head  of 
the  church.  I  sustain  an  organic  relation 
to  all  the  other  members  of  his  body.  I  am 
cleansed,  fed  and  renewed  by  the  currents 
of  influence  which  are  flowing  through  the 
body  of  Christ.  I  stand  at  attention  under 
his  eye,  ready  to  execute  the  commands  of 
my  Head.  I  find  myself  an  heir  of  God,  a 
joint  heir  with  Christ  in  all  the  high  privilege 
and  lasting  glory  which  are  the  portion  of 
his  body.  What  finer  thing  can  be  said  of 

39 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

any  individual  than  to  assert,  in  all  the  full- 
ness of  meaning  which  the  phrase  denotes, 
"  He  belongs  to  the  church." 

It  was  the  greatest  of  the  Apostles  who 
maintained  that  the  church  is  the  body  of 
Christ.  It  is  the  place  where  the  spirit  of 
Christ  resides.  When  Jesus  was  here  his 
mind  and  heart  ranged  freely  across  wide 
areas  of  human  need  and  up  to  the  final 
source  of  our  help.  But  behind  and  within 
that  face  and  form,  which  his  friends  came  to 
know  and  to  love,  his  spirit  was  at  home, 
resident,  domiciled,  established.  Those  early 
Christians  saw  and  felt  the  glory  of  the  eter- 
nal in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  Likewise  the 
church,  which  is  his  body,  becomes  the  abiding 
place  for  his  spirit.  Where  two  or  three, 
where  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand  are  gath- 
ered together  in  his  name  as  a  true  church, 
there  he  is  in  the  midst.  His  spirit  is  domi- 
ciled in  his  church. 

The  church  is  the  place  where  his  spirit  is 
best  revealed.  When  Jesus  was  here  on 
earth,  men  saw  not  his  spirit  —  no  man 
hath  seen  a  spirit  at  any  time.  But  in  the 
bearing  and  movements  of  his  body,  in  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body  and  in  the  expression 
on  his  face,  his  spirit  stood  revealed.  In 
these  days  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  revealed 
mainly  in  the  attitude  and  bearing,  in  the 

40 


Belonging  to  the  Church 

deeds,  the  moods  and  the  utterances  of  his 
church. 

The  church  is  the  main  instrument  by  which 
Christ  works.  When  Jesus  moved  along 
the  lanes  of  Galilee  and  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
the  eyes  of  his  body  sought  out  human  need, 
his  ears  heard  and  reported  the  cry  for  help, 
his  feet  bore  him  upon  errands  of  mercy, 
and  his  hand  reached  out  to  lift,  to  heal  and 
to  bless.  Here  again  the  church  as  his  body 
becomes  the  main  tool  of  his  achievement. 
Its  members  become  eyes  to  see  opportuni- 
ties for  service  and  ears  to  hear  the  words 
of  appeal.  They  become  minds  to  frame  and 
lips  to  utter  the  gospel  of  hope.  They  be- 
come feet  to  go  upon  his  errands  of  recovery, 
and  hands,  open,  outstretched  and  ungloved 
in  their  offer  of  help. 

The  church  is  the  converting,  transforming 
agency  whereby  the  raw  material  of  his 
kingdom  is  transformed  into  the  living  fibre 
of  his  body.  The  body  of  Jesus  took  up  and 
assimilated  the  food  offered  him  in  Galilee 
and  in  Judea,  to  transform  that  substance 
into  forms  of  energy  which  spake  and  loved 
and  lived  in  that  benign  presence.  The 
church  reaches  out  and  apprehends  the  prof- 
fered material  in  all  those  unrenewed  lives. 
It  transforms  them  by  the  grace  given  it 
by  the  divine  indwelling.  This  ordinary 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

substance  of  our  common  humanity,  often- 
times of  the  earth  earthy,  is  thus  changed 
into  finer  forms  of  energy  where  one  may  see 
the  kingdom  of  God  coming  with  power  and 
great  glory. 

In  the  face  of  all  the  high  privilege,  en- 
nobling obligations,  and  exalted  usefulness 
suggested  by  the  Apostle's  conception  of  the 
true  function  of  organized  religion,  how 
much  it  means  to  belong  to  the  church! 
The  body  is  one  and  hath  many  members, 
and  all  members  have  not  the  same  office. 
There  are  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the  same 
spirit.  There  are  differences  of  administra- 
tion, but  the  same  Lord.  There  are  varieties 
of  operation,  but  it  is  the  same  God  who 
worketh.  The  head  cannot  say  to  the  feet, 
the  highest  cannot  say  to  the  lowest,  "  I 
have  no  need  of  you."  The  feeble  and  in- 
conspicuous are  necessary  for  his  complete 
design,  as  well  as  those  members  upon  whom 
he  has  bestowed  more  abundant  honor.  We 
suffer  or  we  rejoice  together.  We  halt  or  we 
advance  as  consenting  and  contributing  mem- 
bers of  one  common  endeavour.  We,  as 
"  members  in  particular  "  of  the  church  of 
the  living  God,  are  indeed  the  body  of  Christ. 

The  Greek  word  in  the  New  Testament 
translated  church  means  literally  "  the  called 
out."  Called  out  from  a  sinful  world ;  called 

42 


Belonging  to  the  Church 

out  from  the  ranks  of  the  spiritually  indiffer- 
ent; called  out  from  the  disorganized  mass 
of  more  or  less  aspiring  souls!  Called  out 
into  a  way  of  life  which  is  life  indeed,  into 
the  path  of  an  ascending  and  unending  ser- 
vice, into  a  mode  of  organized  spiritual  effort, 
against  which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  pre- 
vail "  Called  to  be  saints  "  at  last,  when 
this  age-long  process  of  self-realization  shall 
finally  express  and  embody  the  perfect  will 
of  God. 

The  church  is  differentiated  from  other 
useful  but  less  worthy  organizations  —  base- 
ball nines,  fire  companies,  lodges  of  Elks 
—  by  three  distinguishing  marks.  It  is  made 
up  of  those  who  have  been  called  out  by  a 
certain  agency,  the  spirit  of  God.  There  is 
in  the  church  something  superhuman.  They 
have  been  called  out  for  a  certain  purpose, 
the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  the  sway  and  rule  of  the  divine  Spirit 
in  all  our  human  affairs.  And  they  are 
people  possessed  of  a  certain  intent,  to  live 
after  the  spirit  and  method  of  Him  who  is 
the  Head  of  the  church.  In  their  spiritual 
immaturity  the  members  of  the  church  are 
for  the  most  part  but  taking  the  initial  steps 
in  this  endeavor,  but  they  must  be  sincere  in 
their  fundamental  purpose. 

I  am  a  high  churchman,  in  that  I  would 

43 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

exalt  the  importance  and  value  of  organized 
religion.  It  is  not  necessary  to  believe  in 
the  doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regeneration  or 
in  the  Real  Presence  in  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  because  one  would  emphasize 
the  value  of  associated  effort  in  worship  and 
service.  We  have  lost  ground  as  Protestants 
by  minimizing  in  many  of  our  moods  and 
phrases  the  value  of  the  church.  The  Roman 
Catholic  priest  urges  his  people  to  come  to 
the  appointed  place  of  worship,  not  only  at 
the  stated  masses  on  Sunday  but  for  personal 
devotion  on  week  days,  when  they  offer  their 
prayers.  We  have  more  commonly  taught 
our  people  to  believe  that  it  is  just  as  easy 
to  pray  in  any  sort  of  a  place  as  in  the  House 
of  Prayer.  They  have  come  to  believe, 
many  of  them,  that  on  the  Lord's  Day  they 
can  "  worship  God  in  nature,"  as  they  put 
it  in  high-sounding  phrase,  meaning  that 
they  spend  their  Sundays  habitually  on  the 
golf  links  or  racing  about  the  country  in 
high-priced  motor  cars.  The  Roman  Catho- 
lic has  emphasized  the  power  of  the  stated 
and  customary  use  of  the  ordinances  of  wor- 
ship. We  find  happy-go-lucky  Protestants 
who  scarcely  know  what  they  are.  The 
Roman  Catholic  has  emphasized  the  value 
of  the  sacraments  as  channels  of  divine  grace. 
We  have  sometimes  allowed  the  Communion 

44 


Belonging  to  the  Church 

service  to  be  so  lightly  esteemed  and  so  awk- 
wardly celebrated  that  followers  of  Christ 
felt  that  they  could  "  take  it  or  leave  it  " 
as  they  chose,  without  in  any  way  affecting 
the  depth  and  strength  of  their  spiritual  lives. 

How  it  lifts  a  man  out  of  the  sense  of  petti- 
ness in  a  purely  private  and  apparently 
insignificant  moral  performance  when  he 
belongs  to  the  church!  He  gains  at  once  the 
sense  of  participating  in  an  august  and  far- 
reaching  spiritual  enterprise.  He  is  now  a 
consenting  and  a  contributing  member  of 
that  body  of  Christ  whose  mighty  redemp- 
tive ministry  is  destined  at  last  to  fill  the 
earth  with  the  glory  of  God  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea.  He  feels  his  own  individual 
will  to  be  good  and  to  do  good  now  heavily 
reinforced  because  it  is  merged  and  blended 
with  the  infinite  Good-Will  of  the  living  God. 
He  has  openly  formed  an  alliance  offensive 
and  defensive  with  One  who  is  out  to  win, 
with  One  who  has  at  his  command  all  the 
forces  needed  for  a  final  and  glorious  victory. 

Here  was  a  private  soldier  in  the  Great 
War.  He  was  just  one  more  Thomas  Atkins, 
scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  several 
millions  of  other  men  just  like  him.  What 
kept  up  his  morale?  What  made  him  strong 
to  do,  to  bear,  and  to  resist? 

He  might  be  marching  wearily  toward  the 

45 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

front  through  rain  or  sleet.  He  might  be 
standing  guard  in  one  of  the  myriad  trenches, 
knee-deep  in  mud  and  filth.  He  might  be 
imperiling  his  life  more  directly  in  some  lis- 
tening post  out  in  No  Man's  Land.  He  did 
not  know  just  how  the  campaign  might  be 
going  at  every  point,  nor  just  how  far  his  own 
bit  of  courage  and  fidelity  might  affect  the 
final  outcome. 

But  he  was  a  unit  in  a  great  army  made  up 
of  just  such  insignificant  units,  utterly  insig- 
nificant if  taken  apart  from  the  great  whole, 
yet  mighty  when  viewed  in  a  comprehensive 
way.  And  he  knew  that  in  command  of 
that  army  and  of  all  the  armies  there  was  a 
man  at  Headquarters  named  Foch,  who  did 
know  how  the  campaign  was  going.  He 
knew  that  at  Headquarters  there  was  a  man 
in  command  of  all  those  diverse  forces  and 
that  he  was  directing  them  with  intelligence 
and  purpose.  He,  as  a  private  soldier,  might 
or  might  not  come  back  alive,  but  the  army 
would  persist.  His  knowledge  of  this  asso- 
ciated effort  made  him  feel  sure  that  ultimate 
victory  was  certain.  His  faith  in  Head- 
quarters and  in  the  total  strength  of  the  army 
to  which  he  belonged  made  him  strong.  As 
one  of  those  private  soldiers  in  our  own  Amer- 
ican army  said  in  my  hearing,  "  We  did  not 
know  much  of  the  time  where  we  were  going 

46 


Belonging  to  the  Church 

or  what  we  were  doing,  but  one  thing  we  did 
know,  and  that  was  we  would  beat  them." 

Hear,  then,  my  parable!  Here  I  stand  in 
some  out-of-the-way  spot  in  the  great  world's 
life!  I  see  the  forces  of  evil  everywhere, 
active,  potent,  and  threatening.  I  am  not 
wise  enough  to  know  just  how  the  battle  is 
going  at  every  point.  I  am  not  wise  enough 
to  know  just  how  far  my  own  bit  of  courage 
and  fidelity,  my  own  prayer  and  self-sacri- 
fice may  count  in  the  final  result.  But  I  am 
fighting  with  the  army  of  the  Lord  of  hosts. 
I  feel  all  the  while  that  at  Headquarters  there 
is  One  who  does  know  all  this  and  infinitely 
more.  I  know  that  at  Headquarters  there  is 
One  who  is  directing  these  forces,  seen  and 
unseen,  with  intelligent  purpose.  He  has  at 
his  command  energies  adequate  for  a  glorious 
victory.  When  I  am  baffled  or  depressed  I 
can  still  feel  that  if  I  will  but  do  my  own  bit 
of  duty  in  my  own  small  sector  of  the  moral 
field,  I  can  leave  the  final  result  with  him. 
And  that  sense  of  participation  in  a  vast 
spiritual  enterprise  with  the  army  and  with 
him  keeps  up  my  morale.  The  very  fact 
that  "  I  belong  to  the  church  "  of  the  living 
God  makes  me  strong  to  do,  to  bear,  and  to 
resist. 

In  thinking,  then,  of  the  church  and  of  the 
obligations  of  church  membership,  of  the 

47 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

activities  and  of  the  interests  of  some  local 
church,  it  is  good  to  think  one's  way  on 
through  to  that  which  is  fundamental  and 
ultimate.  Do  not  stop  at  the  little  way 
stations  along  the  road  your  mind  will  traverse, 
offering  your  conscience  small  excuses  and 
trivial  evasions  of  duty;  go  right  on  up  to 
the  end  of  the  line  When  you  thank  God 
for  your  daily  bread  and  for  all  your  other 
mercies  and  privileges,  do  not  stop  with  the 
bread.  Keep  straight  on  until  you  are  face 
to  face  with  the  Giver  of  all  good  gifts,  the 
Author  and  Director  of  all  the  forces  which 
make  for  good. 

"  For  back  of  the  loaf  is  the  snowy  flour; 

And  back  of  the  flour,  the  mill; 
And  back  of  the  mill,  the  wheat  and  the  shower 
And  the  sun  and  the  Father's  Will." 


48 


RECRUITING  THE  CHURCH 


IV 
Recruiting  the  Church 

THE  care  of  a  parish  means  a  great  deal 
more  than  taking  good  care  of  the 
church  members  turned  over  to  the 
minister  by  his  predecessor  in  the  pastoral 
office.  It  was  a  meager  ideal  which  a  preacher 
once  announced  when  he  said  that  his  idea 
of  success  was  "  to  keep  the  pews  full  and  a 
smile  on  the  treasurer's  face."  He  might 
easily  have  achieved  that  end  and  still  have 
had  upon  his  hands  a  church  as  lifeless  as 
Lazarus  was  when  the  Master  came. 

The  process  of  elimination  goes  forward 
steadily  in  the  visible  body  of  Christ  as  in 
every  other  organism.  There  are  removals 
by  transfer  to  other  parishes  and  there  are 
removals  by  the  hand  of  death.  There  are 
inroads  from  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil  which  rob  the  church  of  some  of  its 
members.  Guard  against  this  process  as 
best  we  may,  losses  will  occur.  The  prudent 
business  man  is  compelled  each  year  to 
'  write  off  "  a  certain  percentage  for  "  the 
depreciation  of  the  plant."  And  in  a  less 

Si 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

material  but  no  less  real  way,  so  must  the 
man  who  deals  with  values  of  a  higher  sort. 

This  process  of  depletion  is  to  be  matched 
and  over-matched  by  the  process  of  replen- 
ishing. Unless  the  church  is  growing,  it  is 
dying.  The  wise  mother  weighs  her  baby 
every  week.  If  there  is  no  increase  in  weight 
she  knows  that  there  is  something  wrong. 
The  enlistment  of  new  members  in  the  church 
stands,  therefore,  in  the  very  forefront  of  in- 
terest. We  may  emphasize  the  importance 
of  "  applied  Christianity  "  in  our  social, 
industrial  and  political  life,  but,  if  we  are 
to  have  that  applied  Christianity,  we  must 
take  steps  to  have  an  adequate,  substantial 
and  constantly  growing  supply  of  Christianity 
to  be  applied.  Lincoln  used  to  say,  "  If  I 
am  to  be  President  of  the  United  States,  I 
must  see  to  it  first  of  all  that  there  is  a  United 
States  to  be  President  of." 

There  is  a  keen  zest  attached  to  the  work  of 
recruiting  members  which  no  other  section 
of  Christian  activity  can  show  in  equal  mea- 
sure. It  is  carrying  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
country  and  winning  victories  over  him  out 
of  hand.  It  has  the  high  significance  which 
must  ever  attach  to  the  inducing  of  self- 
determining  lives  to  change  their  final  alle- 
giance. It  develops  in  those  who  undertake 
it  a  deeper  consecration,  that  they  may  feel 

52 


Recruiting  the  Church 

themselves  in  some  measure  worthy  to  make 
their  •  appeals  as  ambassadors  of  Christ  to 
those  whom  they  would  see  reconciled  to  God. 
The  recruiting  of  the  church  has  in  it  all  the 
chivalry  of  Christian  service  at  its  best. 

The  very  difficulty  of  it  offers  an  effective 
challenge  to  the  powers  of  every  one  who 
undertakes  it,  be  he  minister  or  layman.  It 
is  comparatively  easy  to  stand  up,  safely 
barricaded  by  a  high  pulpit  and  by  the  sacred 
conventions  of  a  public  service,  at  a  safe 
distance  from  the  publicans  and  sinners,  and 
bombard  them  with  texts  and  with  well- 
phrased  appeals  for  them  to  undertake  the 
Christian  life.  It  is  quite  another  thing  to 
come  down  to  the  ordinary  level  of  every-day 
life  and  meet  them  at  arm's  length,  man  to 
man,  and  there  seek  to  induce  them  to  make 
Christian  duty  their  supreme  choice  in  life. 
It  is  calculated  to  induce  humility  in  the  most 
cocksure  man  who  ever  ascended  the  pulpit 
stairs.  Dealing  with  people  where  they  can 
talk  back,  seeking  to  awaken  the  indifferent, 
to  win  the  hostile,  and  to  infuse  new  purpose 
into  the  reluctant,  sends  a  man  to  his  Bible 
and  to  his  knees  to  renew  his  strength  by 
waiting  upon  the  source  of  all  strength. 

The  work  of  recruiting  members  keeps  the 
heart  of  the  church  warm  and  its  life  strong. 
You  may  set  it  down  as  an  assured  fact  that 

53 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

the  church  which  is  evangelistic  in  spirit 
and  purpose  is  not  falling  to  pieces  from  dry- 
rot  or  spiritual  coldness.  The  very  process 
of  drawing  in  from  the  fringes  of  its  influence 
those  who  are  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of 
God  but  still  on  the  outer  edge  of  Christian 
life  keeps  the  heart  and  center  of  the  church 
close  knit  and  compact. 

The  unceasing  effort  of  a  faithful  minister 
to  bring  others  to  Christ  attaches  his  own 
people  to  him  as  nothing  else  will  do.  The 
Christian  woman  who  sees  her  pastor  intent 
upon  inducing  her  husband  to  become  a 
Christian,  or  seeking  to  win  her  boys  to  Chris- 
tian living,  does  not  care  two  straws  whether 
or  not  he  calls  upon  her  at  frequent  intervals 
to  drink  tea  and  hear  about  the  health  of  her 
canary  birds.  She  sees  that  he  is  about  his 
Master's  business,  and  she  likes  him  amazingly 
for  this  harder  task  he  is  seeking  to  accom- 
plish. 

The  high  and  dry  Pharisees  twitted  the 
disciples  upon  the  fact  that  their  Master 
ate  with  publicans  and  sinners.  He  replied 
with  those  Parables  of  the  Lost  Sheep,  the 
Lost  Coin,  the  Lost  Boy,  which  will  be  known 
and  loved  when  the  critics  have  been  buried 
in  oblivion  beyond  the  hope  of  any  sort  of 
resurrection.  He  also  remarked  with  deli- 
cate but  effective  irony  that  he  was  a  physi- 

54 


Recruiting  the  Church 

cian  and  that  his  business,  therefore,  was 
mainly  with  the  sick.  "  They  that  are 
whole  have  no  need  of  the  physician,  but  they 
that  are  sick.  I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous 
but  sinners  to  repentance."  How  delicious 
it  was  !  "  Whole,"  indeed  —  when  they 
were  stretched  out  at  full  length  on  beds  of 
wrong-doing,  unable  to  lift  their  hands  or 
their  heads  to  the  furtherance  of  righteousness. 
"  Not  the  righteous  "  —  when  he  knew,  and 
they  knew,  and  all  who  heard  him  knew,  that 
those  supercilious  faultfinders  were  at  the 
longest  remove  from  being  "  righteous"! 
There  was,  as  a  matter  of  cold  fact,  more 
hope  for  the  publicans  and  harlots  than  there 
was  for  them.  It  was  the  glory  of  his  life 
to  go  forth  and  enlist  in  the  high  task  of 
bringing  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  those  who 
had  made  moral  failure.  And  in  heaven 
there  was  more  joy  over  the  repentance  of 
one  such  than  there  was  over  all  the  prudent 
performances  of  those  who  esteemed  them- 
selves too  good  to  need  repentance. 

The  one  who  undertakes  to  recruit  the 
membership  of  the  church  will  naturally 
keep  his  purpose  clearly  in  mind  and  actually 
in  sight.  "  Fishers  of  men  "  —  he  is  not 
there  just  to  pass  the  time  of  day  with  the 
fish  or  to  show  them  he  is  not  afraid  of  deep 
water  because  he,  too,  has  learned  to  swim. 

55 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

He  is  there  to  catch  them  if  he  can  and  enlist 
them  in  a  finer  mode  of  life.  He  counts  that 
wise  and  warm  spirit  of  evangelism  as  the 
crowning  asset  on  his  trial  balance  as  it  is  in 
the  make-up  of  any  minister  of  Christ. 

This  high  task  of  winning  others  furnishes 
the  most  wholesome  exercise  available  for 
the  membership  of  the  church.  If  they 
would  "  grow  in  grace,"  let  them  do  as  the 
early  Christians  did.  When  Andrew  had 
found  the  Messiah,  he  at  once  found  his 
brother  Simon  and  brought  him  to  Christ. 
Philip  found  the  Messiah  and  then  promptly 
found  Nathaniel  and  brought  him.  And 
each  "  next  man  "  passed  it  on  to  some  other 
'  next."  So  the  Christian  movement  grew 
by  the  immediate  contagion  of  life  upon  life. 

Once,  and  only  once,  do  we  read  that  the 
One  who  was  known  as  "  a  man  of  sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief  "  actually  "  exulted 
in  spirit."  It  was  not  in  the  hour  when  he 
stood  on  the  mount  of  the  Transfiguration, 
his  face  shining  like  the  sun  in  its  strength. 
It  was  not  when  he  stood  on  the  Horns  of 
Hattin  uttering  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
to  go  echoing  its  way  down  the  ages  with  its 
serene  message  of  help.  It  was  not  when  he 
rode  along  the  streets  of  his  capital  city, 
receiving  the  popular  acclaim  and  having 
hosannas  showered  upon  him  as  a  King  who 

56 


Recruiting  the  Church 

came  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  It  was  in  the 
hour  when  "  the  other  seventy  "  unordained 
and  unnamed  disciples  returned  with  an 
encouraging  report  as  to  what  they  had  been 
accomplishing  by  the  power  of  the  truth  he 
had  given  them.  "  In  that  hour  Jesus  ex- 
ulted in  spirit  "  and  cried  out  that  he  had  seen 
'  Satan  falling  like  lightning  from  heaven." 
The  success  of  those  modest  disciples  in 
winning  their  fellows  to  a  new  allegiance 
became  to  him  an  earnest  of  the  glorious 
consummation  when  every  knee  should  bow 
and  every  tongue  confess  that  his  mode  of 
life  had  the  right  to  rule  in  the  lives  of  men. 

In  the  best  sense  every  service  of  the  church 
may  be  made  evangelistic.  This  does  not 
mean  that  on  every  such  occasion  the  minis- 
ter will  undertake  to  declare  the  whole  plan 
of  salvation,  or  that  he  will  in  set  terms  urge 
upon  his  hearers  repentance  for  sin,  and  sav- 
ing faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  does 
not  mean  that  at  every  service  he  will  ask 
people  to  stand  up,  or  to  raise  their  hands, 
to  sign  cards,  or  to  come  forward  for  prayers. 
But  every  rightly  ordered  service  may  be  so 
conducted  that  in  its  steady  outreach,  it 
will  be  urging  upon  the  minds  and  conscience 
of  all  who  come  the  naturalness,  the  reason- 
ableness and  the  winsomeness  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  It  will  hold  before  their  gaze  the 

57 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

high  privilege  and  the  sacred  obligation  of 
Christian  living  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  mov- 
ing them  steadily  in  that  general  direction. 

When  a  man  falls  from  the  top  of  a  ten- 
story  building,  the  power  of  gravitation  mani- 
fests itself  in  one  way.  The  body  of  the 
man  comes  to  the  pavement  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,  and  when  it  strikes  the  result  is 
tragic.  The  power  of  gravitation  manifests 
itself  no  less  truly  but  in  a  very  different  way 
in  its  steady  pull  upon  the  Muir  glacier, 
causing  it  to  move  only  a  few  feet  perhaps  in 
the  course  of  a  year.  One's  whole  ministry 
and  the  entire  work  of  the  Christian  church 
may  likewise  exercise  a  steady  pull  upon  the 
lives  of  men,  drawing  them  into  the  Kingdom, 
in  ways  less  showy  and  dramatic,  but  more 
effective  oftentimes  than  the  striking  efforts 
of  some  notable  and  noisy  evangelistic  cam- 
paign. 

When  the  work  of  recruiting  is  restricted 
to  a  special  series  of  meetings  or  to  one  par- 
ticular season  of  the  year,  many  people  will 
be  missed.  Like  the  Jews  of  old,  they  will 
not  be  in  the  right  mood  at  that  particular 
season  to  know  the  time  of  their  visitation 
or  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  has  come  nigh  unto  them.  In  a  rural 
church  near  my  father's  home  in  Iowa,  a 
young  man  was  once  converted  in  the  month 

58 


Recruiting  the  Church 

of  July.  It  was  much  remarked  upon,  and 
one  of  my  father's  neighbors  made  the 
observation:  tl  I  hear  that  Theodore  Craven 
was  converted  over  at  Zion  Baptist  Church 
last  Sunday  night.  I  never  heard  before  of 
a  man  getting  religion  in  July."  He  felt 
that  "  getting  religion  "  was  something  like 
raising  watermelons.  It  could  only  be  done 
at  a  certain  season.  "  The  tree  of  life," 
however,  bore  her  fruit  of  ministering  to 
human  need  "  every  month,  "  and  the  very 
11  leaves  of  the  tree  were  for  the  healing  of 
the  nations."  Any  service  and  every  service 
may  well  be  saving  in  the  spirit  it  maintains 
and  in  the  atmosphere  it  creates.  "  Today,  if 
you  will  hear  his  voice.  Now  is  the  accepted 
time.  Now  is  the  day  of  salvation." 

Every  service  may  be  clearing  up  intellec- 
tual difficulties  and  replacing  mistaken  con- 
ceptions with  a  more  valid  interpretation  of 
the  eternal  verities.  Every  service  may  be 
shedding  light  upon  those  moral  confusions 
where  some  people  think  that  they  are  not 
good  enough  to  join  the  church,  and  others 
feel  that  they  are  so  good  already  as  to  need 
no  more  vital  relation  to  the  spiritual  forces 
at  work  in  the  society  where  they  stand. 
Every  service  may  be  lifting  up  and  reveal- 
ing Him  who  is  able  to  draw  all  men  unto 
him  if  they  can  only  be  brought  to  see  him 

59 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

as  he  is.  The  compelling  vision  of  the  liv- 
ing Christ  will  awaken  an  impulse  to  be 
'  like  him  "  which  will  determine  the  issue. 
Every  service  may  be  paving  the  way  for 
that  supreme  and  final  decision  which  carries 
the  soul  from  darkness  into  light,  to  go  no 
more  out. 

In  this  work  of  recruiting  the  church,  I 
would  name  as  the  first,  the  best  and  the 
most  effective  method,  the  method  of  per- 
sonal evangelism.  There  was  one  occasion 
in  the  Early  Church,  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
when  three  thousand  were  added  to  the 
church.  But  they  were  already  "  devout 
men  from  every  nation  under  heaven  "  — 
devout  enough  to  have  made  the  long  jour- 
ney up  to  Jerusalem  to  participate  in  that 
great  festival  of  the  Jewish  church.  In  their 
case  it  was  a  theological  rather  than  a  moral 
conversion.  They  kept  straight  on  as  ' 'de- 
vout men,"  only  now  they  had  enrolled 
themselves  under  the  leadership  of  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah.  There  was  one  such  day  that 
men  might  hope  and  pray  for  the  exceptional 
outpouring  of  the  divine  spirit,  but  only  one, 
lest  the  church  should  entrust  its  entire  life 
to  these  wholesale  efforts. 

11  The  good  shepherd  calleth  his  own  sheep 
by  name  and  leadeth  them  out."  He  was 
able  to  call  them  by  name  because  he  had 

60 


Recruiting  the  Church 

put  himself  in  close  personal  relations  with 
each  one.  It  was  that  intimate  touch  which 
made  his  call  effective.  The  drag-net  takes 
of  every  kind  and  all  at  once,  but  the  results 
are  mixed.  When  the  inevitable  sorting 
out  has  taken  place  upon  the  shore,  there 
must  be  entered  up  a  substantial  and  dis- 
heartening discount  of  the  first  impression 
made  as  to  the  success  of  the  effort,  by  an 
actual  appraisal  of  the  net  result.  The  hook- 
and-line  method  is  slower  and  surer  when  the 
final  returns  are  all  in. 

In  my  own  ministry  I  find  in  looking  over 
my  parish  records  that  those  years  when  I 
made  the  most  calls  and  talked  personally 
with  the  largest  number  of  individuals  were 
the  years  which  showed  the  largest  number 
of  people  added  to  the  church  on  confession 
of  faith.  This  might  not  hold  true  in  every 
man's  ministry  the  country  over.  I  am  glad 
to  believe  that  many  ministers  have  proven 
themselves  better  harvesters  of  spiritual  re- 
sults than  I  have  been.  Even  so,  the  method 
of  personal  evangelism  has  so  much  to  say 
for  itself  as  to  outclass  and  outlast  all  rival 
methods. 

Hand-picked  fruit  keeps  better  through  the 
long  winter  than  does  the  fruit  which  was 
shaken  from  the  tree  and  picked  up  from 
the  ground.  Hand-picked  converts  have 

61 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

a  way  of  holding  out  and  of  being  found  in 
their  places  five  years  later  to  an  extent  not 
always  to  be  realized  among  those  who  were 
brought  in  by  the  more  miscellaneous  effort 
of  shaking  the  tree  in  a  mighty,  monster 
aggregation  attempt  at  the  wholesale  evan- 
gelism of  an  entire  city. 

Fewer  sensitive  souls  are  hurt  and  repelled 
by  the  quiet  method  of  evangelism  than  is 
likely  to  be  the  case  where  the  rough-and-ready 
methods  of  a  professional  evangelist  are  im- 
posed upon  the  community.  When  the  work 
is  done  in  this  apostolic  way,  Andrew  find- 
ing Peter,  and  Philip  making  himself  res- 
ponsible for  Nathaniel,  the  taste  of  the  peo- 
ple is  not  coarsened  and  vitiated,  which  is  a 
common  result  of  those  bizarre  methods  of 
some  evangelists  which  are  deemed  impera- 
tive for  the  hasty  filling  of  a  huge  tabernacle 
with  a  crowd  eager  for  another  thrill. 

In  the  less  showy  method  of  evangelism 
there  will  commonly  be  less  of  the  loose  and 
dogmatic  statement  carelessly  but  often  suc- 
cessfully employed  for  the  sake  of  some  im- 
mediate effect  and  leaving  some  ugly  prob- 
lems for  the  patient  pastors  who  stand  by 
to  pick  up  the  fragments  which  remain. 
The  ethical  teaching  put  forth  by  settled 
pastors  and  by  faithful  laymen  in  their  work 
of  recruiting  is  likely  to  be  better  balanced, 

62 


Recruiting  the  Church 

and  the  Biblical  interpretation  is  apt  to  be 
more  competent,  than  is  the  case  when  fer- 
vent and  dramatic  exhorters,  lacking  both 
the  thorough  training  and  the  cultural  back- 
ground for  such  a  sacred  undertaking,  come 
swiftly  upon  the  scene  for  a  brief  and  incon- 
clusive effort. 

We  cannot  blind  ourselves  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  last  twenty-five  years  the  educational 
forces  in  this  country  have  been  gaining 
steadily  upon  the  ecclesiastical  forces.  We 
recognize  this  gain  in  the  larger  amounts  of 
money  which  they  are  able  to  secure  from 
thoughtful  people  for  the  prosecution  of  their 
work;  in  the  larger  hold  they  have  obtained 
upon  the  popular  esteem,  and  in  the  number 
and  quality  of  the  young  men  and  women 
they  can  enlist  in  their  service.  These  edu- 
cational forces  have  emphasized  "  the  pro- 
cess "  rather  than  "  the  crisis."  They  have 
rested  their  entire  weight  upon  the  value  of 
the  slow,  steady,  well-considered  process, 
rather  than  upon  the  jerks  and  spurts  of  some 
showy  crisis.  In  the  light  of  their  experience 
in  making  this  splendid  gain,  we  may  well 
believe  that  the  way  of  Christian  nurture 
in  its  best  and  broadest  sense,  the  way  of 
pastoral  and  personal  evangelism,  is  "  the 
more  excellent  way."  If  the  churches  had 
been  steadily  doing  their  best  along  these 

63 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

lines,  the  demand  for  those  other  swifter 
but  less  worthy  methods  might  never  have 
arisen.  Why  not  do  this  great  work  in  the 
best  way  —  that  is,  in  Christ's  way? 


ADAPTING  THE  CHURCH 


V 

Adapting  the  Church 

THE   form  of  church  life  in  the   matter 
of   polity,  of  worship,  of  activity  had 
best  spring  from  a  careful  survey  and 
an    intelligent  recognition  of  the    needs    of 
the  field  where  the  church  is  doing  its  work. 
We  shall  find  along  that  line  a  surer  guide  to 
spiritual   effectiveness   than   in   any   sort   of 
blind  reliance  upon  some  preconceived  notion 
of  what  the  church  should  be  and  do. 

It  may  be  that  the  early  churches  de- 
scribed in  the  Book  of  Acts  were  congrega- 
tional in  their  polity.  I  use  the  term  not  in 
any  sectarian  sense,  but  merely  as  indicating 
that  simplest  and  most  democratic  form  of 
government  adopted  by  several  branches  of 
the  church  of  Christ.  It  is  my  own  per- 
sonal belief  that  those  early  churches  were 
congregational.  But  this  is  not  a  matter  of 
large  significance.  If  a  church  governed  by 
elders  like  the  Presbyterian  Church,  or  a 
church  governed  by  bishops  like  the  Epis- 
copal and  the  Methodist  Churches,  or  a  church 
governed  by  a  pope  like  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  shows  itself  better  suited  to  serve  the 

67 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

spiritual  interest  of  a  community,  a  state, 
or  a  nation,  as  determined  by  years  of  in- 
structive experience,  then  it  would  have  high 
warrant  for  claiming  the  divine  sanction  upon 
its  particular  kind  of  polity. 

The  church,  whatever  its  form  of  organiza- 
tion may  be,  is  never  to  be  regarded  as  an 
end  in  itself.  The  church  is  just  a  tool  in 
the  hands  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  be  employed 
in  the  establishing  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth.  The  tool  must  of  necessity  be  shaped 
with  reference  to  the  work  to  be  done.  It 
is  pathetic  always  to  see  some  ecclesiastic 
expend  his  time  and  strength  in  forging, 
polishing  and  sharpening  his  tool  according 
to  some  dogmatic  conception  of  his  own, 
without  ever  asking  himself  in  any  definite 
way  what  he  is  to  do  with  it.  The  man  of 
sense  does  not  whet  his  scythe  all  day  —  he 
cuts  grass.  The  wise  pastor  is  not  merely 
intent  upon  keeping  the  wheels  of  his  eccle- 
siastic machine  polished  and  turning  —  his 
eyes  and  his  mind  are  upon  some  worthy  prod- 
uct fit  for  the  garners  of  the  Lord. 

In  appraising  the  usefulness  of  any  church 
the  idea  of  usefulness  cannot  be  conceived 
in  any  narrow  sense.  The  long-drawn-out 
discussion  as  to  the  respective  value  of  "  in- 
stitutional "  and  "  inspirational  "  churches 
has  been  in  the  main  a  waste  of  words  and  a 

68 


Adapting  the  Church 

beating  of  the  air.  It  is  so  easy  and  so  futile 
to  claim  that  the  first  type  of  church  is 
"  practical"  and  the  other  type  only  "theo- 
retical." The  church  which  has  evening 
classes,  men's  clubs  and  boys'  clubs,  a  gym- 
nasium and  a  swimming  pool,  a  sewing 
school  and  a  day  nursery,  and  all  the  other 
activities  belonging  to  full-orbed  institutional 
religious  effort,  is  sometimes  put  down  as 
"  a  practical,  useful,  serving  church."  But 
there  may  be  a  community  where  no  one  of 
these  forms  of  activity  is  "  indicated, "  as 
the  physicians  say  in  their  careful  diagnosis. 
The  church  which  receives  into  its  doors  on 
Sunday  morning  a  congregation  of  men  and 
women,  young  men  and  maidens,  hardened, 
coarsened,  disheartened,  paganized  by  a  week 
of  rough  contact  with  the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  devil,  and  by  its  appointed  services 
sends  them  back  to  their  homes  and  to  their 
toil  renewed  and  enriched,  ennobled  and 
sweetened,  ready  to  take  up  all  their  tasks 
with  fresh  zest  and  relish  and  do  them  better, 
carrying  on  serenely  —  that  church  has  done 
something  intensely  practical. 

The  church  which  takes  a  company  of 
cold,  hard,  proud,  self-satisfied  people  and 
humbles  them,  softens  them,  leads  them  to 
become  as  little  children  in  their  Father's 
house,  has  done  a  great  piece  of  work.  The 

69 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

church  which  takes  a  set  of  rigid,  uncom- 
promising individuals,  who  pride  themselves 
on  standing  each  one  on  his  own  two  feet, 
neither  asking  nor  giving  odds,  who  are 
saying  by  their  mood  and  bearing,  if  not  in 
so  many  words,  "  Every  man  for  himself  and 
the  devil  take  the  hindmost  "  —  the  church 
which  takes  them  and  produces  within 
them  by  years  of  patient,  heroic  effort  the 
social  habit  of  mind  and  the  readiness  to 
fix  their  hearts  upon  social  ideals  as  the  only 
worthy  object  of  spiritual  aspiration,  has 
given  a  good  account  of  itself.  The  church 
which  in  the  course  of  a  winter  converts  one 
strong  young  man  from  a  life  of  wrong-doing 
or  of  spiritual  indifference  to  a  life  of  sus- 
tained and  conscientious  Christian  effort 
has  written  its  name  on  the  walls  of  the  City 
of  God.  It  has  paid  for  itself  for  all  time. 
It  may  well  reap  royalties  of  spiritual  satis- 
faction during  all  the  rest  of  its  history  from 
the  splendid  service  of  that  man  who  was 
there  brought  out  of  darkness  into  light. 

The  power-house  does  not  move  about  the 
city  in  a  hurried,  restless  desire  to  be  "  use- 
ful." It  does  not  carry  laborers  to  the  fac- 
tories, merchants  to  their  stores,  children 
to  their  schools,  or  worshipers  to  the  church. 
The  power-house  stands  there  in  stolid  fashion, 
some  would  say,  upon  its  own  appointed 

70 


Adapting  the  Church 

plot  of  ground,  leaving  all  these  practical 
lines  of  usefulness  untouched.  But  it  fur- 
nishes power  to  the  street-cars  as  they  carry 
people  about  the  streets.  The  church  which 
is  steadily  recruiting  the  supply  of  Christian 
impulse  in  the  community,  so  that  moral 
dynamic  flows  evenly,  steadily,  and  strongly 
along  all  the  wires  which  stretch  out  through 
the  life  of  the  community,  is  rendering  a  ser- 
vice unspeakably  precious  to  the  higher  life 
of  that  city.  Inspiration  is  usefulness. 

There  are  churches  which  would  do  well 
to  adapt  their  activities  to  the  situations  where 
they  find  themselves.  Some  churches  are 
dying  because  of  their  unwillingness  to  read- 
just their  methods  to  the  task  at  hand. 
They  could  learn  useful  lessons  from  the 
study  of  biology.  There  was  a  time,  we  are 
told,  when  the  highest  forms  of  life  here  on 
earth  were  water-breathing  marine  animals 
with  fins  and  gills.  It  may  easily  have  been 
that  some  of  these  forms  of  life  found  them- 
selves stranded  on  the  beach  by  some  un- 
usually high  tide,  or  that  some  of  them  in  an 
ill-calculated  spurt  of  energy  may  have 
flopped  out  of  the  stream  upon  the  bank. 

Now  there  were  three  courses  open  to  them 
in  the  unusual  situation  where  they  found 
themselves.  First,  they  could  give  up  and 
die  because  the  environment  was  strange 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

and  difficult.  Second,  they  could  try  to 
flop  back  into  the  stream  or  into  some  adjoin- 
ing pool,  or  wait  for  another  high -tide  to 
restore  them  to  an  environment  with  which 
they  were  familiar.  Third,  they  could  enter 
upon  a  desperate  struggle  for  readjustment, 
many  of  them  dying  in  the  attempt,  perhaps, 
and  thus  finally  learn  how  to  live  under  these 
changed  conditions.  By  a  long  process  of 
adaptation  the  fins  became  flippers  and  then 
the  flippers  became  legs;  the  gills  became 
lungs,  breathing  air  instead  of  water,  and  there 
emerged  upon  the  scene  a  new  form  of  air- 
breathing  land  animal  able  to  make  its  way 
on  solid  ground. 

However  accurate  or  inaccurate  in  detail 
this  brief  account  of  the  evolutionary  process 
may  be,  it  will  serve  as  an  illustration.  Here 
is  a  down-town  city  church  The  removal 
of  the  substantial  families  which  once  filled 
its  pews  has  left  it  in  a  difficult  situation. 
The  new  environment  of  stores,  tenement 
houses  and  apartment  hotels,  with  their 
transient  population,  threatens  its  very  exis- 
tence. It,  too,  may  sell  its  property  to  some 
moving-picture  enterprise,  and  die  —  this 
is  always  a  simple,  easy  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem, if  indeed  it  be  a  solution.  It  may,  on 
the  other  hand,  sell  its  property  and  flop  off 
into  the  suburbs  and  build  there  a  new  place 

72 


Adapting  the  Church 

of  worship  in  the  sort  of  environment  to  which 
it  was  accustomed  in  the  early  decades  of  its 
history.  It  may  explain  its  change  of  base 
by  the  fact  that  "  so  many  foreigners  had 
moved  in  "  and  (as  is  often  the  case)  ease 
its  conscience  by  taking  up  more  generous 
offerings  for  missionary  work.  It  is  some- 
times easier  to  deal  with  foreigners  religiously 
at  the  end  of  a  long  pole,  and  if  the  pole  is 
seven  or  eight  thousand  miles  long,  all  the 
better. 

Or,  as  the  last  and  best  alternative,  that 
church  may  readjust  its  organs  and  its  func- 
tions by  heroic  effort  and  painful  self-sacri- 
fice, and  thus  learn  to  live  a  new  life  under 
these  changed  conditions.  This  effort  may 
involve  a  severe  struggle  and  a  great  many 
bad  half -hours,  but  where  it  succeeds  it  will 
mean  also  the  emergence  upon  the  scene  of 
a  higher  form  of  church  life. 

Here  was  the  Madison  Avenue  Presby- 
terian Church  in  New  York  City!  There 
was  a  time  when  its  pews  were  filled  from  the 
pulpit  to  the  front  door  with  people  of  wealth, 
of  culture,  of  social  position.  But  there  came 
a  shifting  of  the  centers  of  wealth  and  of  the 
higher  social  activities.  Madison  Avenue 
was  no  longer  "  The  Avenue/'  The  plain 
people,  who  live  in  thick  layers  like  a  choco- 
late cake,  came  surging  up  the  East  Side 

73 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

with  their  swarming  tenement  houses.  With- 
in three  or  four  blocks  of  this  Madison  Avenue 
Church  there  was  to  be  found  the  most 
thickly  populated  section  of  New  York  City. 
This  church  did  not  die  and  it  did  not  sell 
out  and  move  to  an  easier  environment. 
It  stayed  right  there  in  its  appointed  place 
and  on  its  job  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  on 
Sunday  morning  to  the  going  down  of  the 
same  on  Saturday  night. 

It  has  had  for  years  a  gifted  pastor,  a  man 
who  came  from  a  New  York  family  of  wealth 
and  social  position,  one  who  received  his 
college  training  at  Yale  and  his  theological 
training  at  Edinboro,  a  man  who  believes 
that  the  ideal  church  is  to  be  found  where 
the  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together  on  the 
basis  of  Christian  democracy  and  the  Lord 
is  the  maker  of  them  all.  This  church  abol- 
ished its  pew  system  as  a  hindrance  to  Chris- 
tian democracy  and  instituted  free  seats. 
It  has,  along  with  a  few  trained  and  gifted 
singers  to  lead  the  several  parts,  a  large 
chorus  choir  of  voluntary  singers  selected 
from  its  own  congregation.  The  people  of 
large  means  and  wide  culture  count  it  their 
joy  and  privilege  to  furnish  a  generous  mea- 
sure of  the  sinews  of  war  and  a  large  share  of 
the  talent  for  leadership ;  but  all  the  people 
give  according  to  the  measure  of  their  ability, 

74 


Adapting  the  Church 

that  the  supply  may  be  full.  The  senior 
pastor  has  a  staff  of  devoted  men  and  women 
co-operating  with  him  in  the  varied  minis- 
tries of  the  church  and  in  the  activities  of  the 
parish.  The  Sunday  school  reaches  out  a 
warm  hand,  open,  ungloved,  inviting,  to  the 
children  of  all  sorts  and  conditions,  that  they 
may  come  in,  assuring  them  that  "  of  such  is 
the  Kingdom".  In  the  absence  of  the  pastor 
I  once  supplied  the  pulpit  of  that  church  on 
a  rainy,  windy  Sunday  in  mid-winter,  and 
there  were  ten  hundred  and  eighty  persons 
present  in  the  Sunday  school  that  day,  boys 
and  girls,  young  men  and  maidens,  men  and 
women,  studying  that  Word  which  makes  us 
wise  unto  salvation  and  furnishes  us  thor- 
oughly for  all  good  work. 

The  church  has  built  a  large  parish  house 
next  door,  eleven  stories  high,  with  all  manner 
of  well-appointed  rooms,  for  its  constant  and 
varied  ministry  to  human  need.  This  parish 
house  has,  as  its  crowning  feature,  a  roof 
garden  where  outdoor  services  are  held  on 
hot  summer  nights,  the  worshipers  lifted 
up  from  the  dust  and  heat  of  the  noisy  street 
into  the  upper  air  of  high  privilege  and  look- 
ing out  upon  a  horizon  bounded  by  nothing 
nearer  than  the  stars  and  the  being  of  God. 
This  Madison  Avenue  Church  is  alive  to  its 
finger-tips.  The  vigor  and  promise  of  its 

75 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

work  causes  many  men  to  thank  God  and 
take  courage. 

The  demand  for  adaptation  in  some  coun- 
try church  may  be  no  less  exacting.  The 
conditions  in  rural  life  have  changed  less 
rapidly,  perhaps,  but  no  less  decisively.  The 
telephones  which  are  ringing  everywhere, 
the  rural  mail  delivery,  the  swift  flight  of 
the  automobile  which  has  replaced  the  old 
reliance  upon  the  slow  movements  of  Dob- 
bin, have  made  country  life  another  thing 
altogether.  My  father  was  a  farmer  for 
more  than  fifty  years  in  the  state  of  Iowa. 
He  lived  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  west 
of  Chicago  and  five  miles  from  the  nearest 
railroad.  In  former  days  we  got  the  mail, 
if  the  roads  were  not  too  bad,  on  an  average 
about  once  a  week.  For  the  last  twenty 
years  of  his  life  the  Chicago  morning  paper 
was  delivered  at  my  father's  front  gate  at 
eleven  o'clock.  The  people  all  but  univer- 
sally are  taking  and  reading  daily  papers  and 
magazines;  they  have  entered  into  wider 
contact  with  the  world's  life.  The  rural 
church  which  once  satisfied  them  satisfies 
them  no  more. 

The  church  in  the  country  has  a  clear 
chance  to  point  the  way  to  more  wholesome 
forms  of  recreation  in  communities  where 
there  is  little  or  nothing  for  the  diversion  of 

76 


Adapting  the  Church 

young  people  between  the  public  dance  hall, 
with  its  undesirable  associations,  or  the 
"  movies,"  with  many  a  questionable  film, 
and  the  Christian  Endeavor  prayer-meeting. 
"  It  is  written,"  not  in  the  Bible  but  in  the 
equally  authoritative  book  of  life,  that  young 
people  shall  not  live  by  sermons  and  prayer- 
meetings  alone.  They  live  by  all  the  great 
words  which  proceed  from  the  purposes  of 
God. 

The  social  life  of  the  church  is  no  mere 
incidental.  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating 
and  drinking  "  —  he  was  intensely  social 
in  his  habit  and  method.  He  began  his 
public  ministry  at  a  wedding,  and  when  the 
refreshments  gave  out  he  helped  his  hosts 
to  get  some  more.  He  did  it  so  successfully 
that  the  general  feeling  among  the  guests 
was  that  they  had  never  tasted  such  joy  be- 
fore. The  most  prominent  and  sacred  article 
of  furniture  in  the  church  is  a  table,  the  place 
where  we  find  things  to  eat  and  to  drink. 
The  Master  would  have  social  interest  cul- 
tivated and  consecrated  as  a  means  of  grace. 
He  would  make  the  fellowship  of  old  and 
young  nothing  less  than  sacramental  in  its 
higher  possibilities.  The  function  of  the 
rural  church  is  not  to  stand  aloof,  consum- 
ing its  zeal  in  scolding  and  denouncing  the 
less  wholesome  methods  of  social  contact  — 

77 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

it  is  there  to  point  the  way  and  to  lead  in  the 
direction  of  more  wholesome  means  of  social 
contact. 

The  rural  church  may  well  provide,  in  its 
own  appointed  services  and  by  its  co-opera- 
tion with  other  agencies,  a  larger  measure 
of  intellectual  stimulus.  The  summer  Chau- 
tauqua,  a  child  of  the  church,  which  owes 
its  wider  introduction  to  the  co-operation 
of  the  Christian  churches,  brings  a  season 
of  privilege  to  thirsty  areas  of  our  American 
life.  The  well-to-do  farmers  here  and  there 
are  moved  to  unite  in  providing  endowments 
for  lecture  courses  which  shall  bring  each 
winter  to  the  community  some  of  the  best 
minds  of  the  nation.  This  action  has  been 
prompted  mainly  by  the  influence  of  the 
church.  In  those  communities  which  are 
not  blessed  with  public  libraries,  the  organ- 
izing of  book  clubs  and  magazine  clubs 
which  are  located  in  and  administered  by  the 
church  brings  wholesome  material  before  the 
eyes  of  the  many  when  they  have  finished 
their  day's  toil  in  the  fields. 

The  rural  church  which  allies  itself  with  the 
extension  work  of  the  State  University  and 
brings  within  the  reach  of  its  people  instruc- 
tive and  stimulating  lectures  and  conferences 
on  better  methods  of  agriculture  and  horti- 
culture, better  methods  of  dairying,  of  poultry 

78 


Adapting  the  Church 

raising  and  of  home  management,  stands 
in  the  apostolic  succession  which  reaches 
back  to  the  One  who  went  about  doing  good 
in  all  the  ways  he  could.  It  may  well  adopt 
for  its  motto  his  own  words,  "  I  am  among 
you  as  one  who  serves."  His  service  reached 
all  the  way  from  the  healing  of  an  unsightly 
leper  to  the  utterance  of  the  words  of  eternal 
life ;  from  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  the  blind 
to  the  manifestation  of  the  glory  he  had  with 
the  Father  before  the  world  was;  from  the 
washing  of  the  feet  of  those  tired  disciples 
to  the  redemption  of  a  sinful  race  by  his  own 
blood. 

The  church  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  the  church.  It  was  made  for  that  part 
of  the  man  which  most  suffers  neglect  else- 
where. It  need  not,  it  had  best  not,  dupli- 
cate lines  of  effort  which  are  already  in  suc- 
cessful operation  through  other  agencies. 
It  must  be  sure  that  the  activities  upon  which 
it  enters  are  calculated  to  meet  real  needs. 
The  sensible  people  speedily  draw  away  from 
that  which  is  merely  perfunctory.  It  is 
never  worth  while  to  hold  meetings  just  for 
the  sake  of  holding  them,  or  for  the  sake  of 
keeping  up  certain  religious  gestures  which 
can  no  longer  be  called  means  of  grace,  just 
because  "  we  always  have."  The  best  pro- 
gram for  the  life  of  a  local  church  springs 

79 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

from  a  careful  and  intelligent  survey  of  the 
needs  of  the  community,  of  the  other  agen- 
cies at  work  to  meet  those  needs,  and  of  the 
resources  available  for  meeting  those  needs 
in  some  generous  and  satisfying  manner. 
And  wherever  the  church  life  is  thus  adapted 
to  the  demands  of  the  environment  it  may 
well  become  the  crowning  glory  of  all  human 
institutions. 

The  true  church  may  well  aspire  to  an 
imperial  place  in  the  life  of  the  community. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  right  in 
its  purpose  but,  as  we  believe,  mistaken  in 
its  method.  It  undertook  by  its  own  official 
authority  to  crown  kings  and  to  control 
education,  and  by  its  confessional  to  stretch 
forth  the  hand  of  authority  into  all  the  most 
intimate  relations  of  our  common  life.  Let 
the  true  church  strive,  not  by  the  method  of 
lordship  and  dominion,  but  by  the  pathway 
of  leadership  and  service,  to  make  the  spiritual 
interest  in  our  total  life  indeed  supreme. 


80 


UNIFYING  THE  CHURCH 


VI 
Unifying  the  Church 

THE  minister  preaches  to  a  congrega- 
tion, but,  if  he  knows  what  he  is  about, 
he  builds  a  church.  The  congrega- 
tion may  have  only  one,  and  that  a  fleeting, 
interest,  the  desire  to  hear  a  certain  gifted 
man  talk  or  a  silver-tongued  choir  sing. 
When  the  service  is  ended,  all  sense  of  unity 
in  the  mere  congregation  vanishes.  There 
is  no  more  cohesion  than  would  be  found 
among  the  men  who  go  to  a  baseball  game 
or  who  sit  for  a  few  hours  as  fellow  passen- 
gers in  the  railroad  train.  Alas  for  the  poor 
parson  who  has  merely  gathered  a  congre- 
gation. 

There  are  eloquent  men  in  the  pulpit  who 
never  advance  from  congregation-gatherers 
to  become  builders  of  churches.  The  preacher 
may  be  a  sensationalist  and  the  people  assem- 
ble for  the  sake  of  a  new  thrill.  He  may  be 
a  clever  lecturer  on  current  events,  and  the 
people  come  for  some  more  skilful  appraisal 
and  interpretation  of  the  news  of  the  week 
than  would  be  found  in  the  ordinary  daily 
paper.  He  may  be  gifted  in  striking  resound- 

83 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

ing  blows  on  behalf  of  certain  social  reforms, 
and  the  people  interested  along  those  par- 
ticular lines  gather  for  the  immediate  feeling 
of  assurance  which  his  utterance  will  occasion. 

In  a  large  American  city  with  which  I  was 
familiar  there  was  a  certain  popular  preacher 
whose  congregations  were  always  good.  His 
church  was  full.  When  he  resigned  he  had 
been  preaching  in  that  church  for  ten  years 
to  crowds  of  interested  and  admiring  people. 
The  Sunday  following  his  resignation  was  a 
beautiful  day  in  the  springtime.  The  pulpit 
of  that  church  was  supplied  by  one  of  the 
ablest  ministers  in  the  state.  And  by  actual 
count  the  congregation  in  the  morning  num- 
bered fifty-seven  and  in  the  evening  fifty- 
three.  It  was  made  up  of  that  faithful  nu- 
cleus of  devoted  people  who  are  the  final 
dependence  and  hope  of  any  Christian  church. 
This  was  all  the  former  pastor  had  to  show 
for  his  ten  years  of  work,  so  far  as  numbers 
went.  This  was  what  he  was  able  to  turn 
over  to  his  successor.  It  had  been  a  personal 
following,  with  little  or  none  of  that  spiritual 
cohesion  which  belongs  to  the  true  church. 

We  had  a  dramatic  illustration  of  the 
difference  between  a  church  and  a  congre- 
gation some  years  ago  in  the  City  of  Brook- 
lyn. T.  DeWitt  Talmadge  and  Theodore 
Cuyler  were  both  Presbyterian  ministers. 

84 


Unifying  the  Church 

They  worked  under  the  same  polity,  declared 
their  allegiance  to  the  same  creed  and  preached 
in  the  same  city.  Talmadge  preached  hab- 
itually to  a  large  congregation.  The  pews 
of  the  great  auditorium  were  almost  uni- 
formly full.  But  when  he  resigned  at  the 
end  of  a  long  pastorate,  the  church  did  not 
have  sufficient  vitality  to  continue  its  work 
or  even  to  maintain  its  existence.  The  church 
was  disbanded  and  the  property  sold  and  the 
organization  came  to  an  end.  It  was  the 
testimony  of  other  pastors  in  the  City  of 
Brooklyn  that  no  appreciable  additions  were 
made  to  their  churches  at  that  time  by  the 
transfer  of  members  from  the  disbanded 
church.  The  Lafayette  Avenue  Presby- 
terian Church,  on  the  other  hand,  where 
Theodore  Cuyler  had  been  engaged  in  con- 
structive Christian  work  for  many  years, 
abides  to  this  hour  in  strength,  in  devotion, 
in  generous  service,  and  in  splendid  promise 
for  the  future.  One  of  the  men  had  gathered 
a  congregation  and  the  other  had  built  a 
church. 

It  is  not  enough  to  develop  in  a  body  of 
people  the  spirit  of  adhesion  to  an  attrac- 
tive preacher.  It  is  not  enough  to  develop 
the  spirit  of  personal  loyalty  to  Him  who  is 
the  Head  of  all  the  churches.  There  must 
come  also  the  sense  of  cohesion  as  fellow 

8s 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

members  of  the  body  of  Christ.  The  nec- 
essity for  a  warm,  intelligent,  close-knit 
and  effective  fellowship  is  instantly  apparent 
when  we  study  the  marks  of  a  true  church. 

How  this  truth  is  emphasized  and  illumi- 
nated in  Paul's  letter  to  the  Ephesians, 
which  is  the  outstanding  classic  on  the  doc- 
trine of  the  church  in  our  Holy  Scriptures  1 
The  church  is  an  organism,  and  there  is  to 
be  found  in  all  of  its  members  that  common 
unifying  principle  which  gives  it  stability 
and  strength.  Now  the  apostle  approaches 
that  central  truth  from  one  angle  and  now 
from  another,  working  it  over  under  varied 
figures  of  speech. 

Now  he  phrases  his  truth  in  terms  of  bi- 
ology. The  church  is  a  body,  the  body  of 
Christ,  the  residing  place  of  his  spirit,  the  re- 
vealing place  of  his  divine  nature,  the  instru- 
ment and  agent  of  his  holy  will,  as  he  dwells 
within  it  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  good 
pleasure. 

Now  he  phrases  his  truth  in  political  terms. 
He  addresses  the  members  of  that  church 
in  Ephesus  as  citizens  in  the  kingdom  of 
God.  "  Ye  were  once  aliens  from  the  com- 
monwealth of  Israel!"  Strangers  from  the 
covenant  of  promise!  Ye  were  outsiders, 
not  under  the  flag,  without  God  and  without 
hope  in  the  world!  But  now  "  ye  are  no 

86 


Unifying  the  Church 

more  strangers  and  foreigners,  but  fellow 
citizens  with  the  saints." 

Now  he  phrases  his  truth  in  terms  of  archi- 
tecture. Ye  are  builded  into  a  holy  temple 
in  the  Lord,  fitly  framed  together  and  com- 
pacted by  that  which  every  joint  supplieth 
according  to  the  effectual  working  in  the 
measure  of  every  part.  "  Ye  are  built  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  prophets  and  apostles, 
Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner- 
stone," as  a  permanent  habitation  of  God 
through  the  Spirit.  Every  stone  as  a  consent- 
ing member  of  the  structure  was  mortared 
in  by  the  sense  of  fellowship  and  held  in 
position  by  the  pressure  of  the  entire  wall. 

Now  he  phrases  the  same  truth  in  terms 
taken  from  vocational  life.  "  Ye  are  called," 
he  says,  l  in  one  hope  of  your  calling." 
He  beseeches  them  to  walk  worthy  of  the 
vocation  wherewith  they  are  called.  He 
recognizes  the  presence  of  a  great  variety  of 
gifts  --  some  men  are  best  suited  to  be 
prophets  and  some  apostles,  some  evangel- 
ists and  some  pastors  and  teachers.  But 
they  are  all  called  "  in  one  hope  "  of  their 
common  calling  for  the  perfecting  of  human 
life,  for  the  work  of  ministry,  for  the  build- 
ing up  of  the  body  of  Christ,  until  all  shall 
come,  in  the  unity  of  the  spirit  and  in  a  grow- 
ing knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  the 

87 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

stature  of  perfect  manhood,  according  to  the 
fulness  of  Christ. 

Now  in  a  yet  more  intimate  way  he  likens 
the  fellowship  of  the  church  to  the  spirit  of 
the  home.  '  I  bow  my  knees  unto  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  from  whom 
the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  on  earth  is 
named."  Here  the  unifying  principle  is  a 
common  love  of  all  for  each  and  of  each  for 
all.  He  would  have  them  strengthened  with 
might  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  in  the  inner  man. 
He  would  have  Christ  dwell  in  their  hearts 
by  faith.  He  would  have  them  so  rooted 
and  grounded  in  the  practice  of  good-will 
that  they  would  ultimately  comprehend  the 
length  and  the  breadth,  the  height  and  the 
depth  of  that  divine  love  which  passeth 
knowledge  and  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness 
of  God. 

How  far  this  apostolic  conception  of  the 
church  stands  above  the  temporary  aggre- 
gation in  some  miscellaneous  crowd  which 
can  be  readily  gathered  to  hear  some  clever 
man  talk  or  some  sweet- voiced  singer  sing! 
This  superficial  assembling  of  ourselves  to- 
gether may  have  some  slight  value  —  it  is 
better  than  nothing  at  all;  it  is  better  than 
having  these  people  spend  the  entire  day 
appointed  for  worship  in  hurried,  thoughtless, 
social  dissipation  or  in  unseemly  forms  of 

88 


Unifying  the  Church 

recreation,  but  it  stops  far  short  of  a  true 
church. 

This  sense  of  intelligent  and  affectionate 
cohesion  which  belongs  to  the  church  is  made 
its  distinctive  mark.  "  By  this  shall  all 
men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,"  not 
that  you  all  declare  your  acceptance  of  a 
certain  system  of  theological  belief;  not  that 
you  have  all  been  baptized  in  some  particular 
way;  not  that  you  all  observe  some  stated 
form  of  liturgy ;  not  that  you  all  are  governed 
by  one  particular  form  of  polity.  All  these 
tokens  of  Christian  life  have  a  certain  value, 
but  they  are  all  secondary.  "  By  this  shall 
men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye 
love  one  another."  It  was  remarked  of  the 
early  church,  "  How  these  Christians  love 
one  another."  The  church  which  lacks  this 
fine  sense  of  fellowship  is  unable  to  stand  in 
the  true  succession  of  the  church  of  Christ. 

It  must  be  a  comprehensive  fellowship. 
The  esprit  de  corps  becomes  an  ugly  thing 
where  it  is  employed  to  cement  more  closely 
the  men  and  women  of  a  single  social  class. 
If  the  church  should  be  used  to  promote  and 
intensify  class  feeling  it  would  be  profaned. 
This  would  be  equally  true  whether  the 
particular  class  which  took  over  the  church 
was  rich  or  poor,  cultured  or  simple,  high  or 
low  in  its  social  status.  The  rich  and  poor 

89 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

had  best  meet  together,  not  as  the  givers 
and  receivers  of  alms,  but  as  the  children  of 
one  Father  in  the  house  of  their  God.  The 
employers  and  the  wage -earners  need  the 
sense  of  spiritual  contact  as  they  meet  to- 
gether around  one  table  to  eat  the  bread 
and  drink  the  wine  of  remembrance,  as  they 
meet  to  pledge  their  loyalty  to  him  in  mutual 
love  and  respect  for  one  another.  The  people 
who  are  well  endowed,  well-trained  intellec- 
tually and  the  unprivileged,  untaught  many 
have  a  mutual  ministry  to  render  to  one 
another.  It  will  be  good  for  the  college  pro- 
fessor to  come  to  closer  grips  with  men  who 
earn  their  bread  by  the  work  of  their  hands. 
It  will  be  good  for  the  toilers  to  enrich  their 
lives  by  contact  with  trained  minds.  It 
was  a  joy  at  St.  George's  Church  in  down- 
town New  York  when  Seth  Low,  the  Presi- 
dent of  Columbia  University,  was  teaching 
from  Sunday  to  Sunday  a  large  Bible  Class 
made  up  exclusively  of  men  who  wrought 
with  their  hands. 

The  fellowship  of  the  church  may  well  be 
comprehensive  in  a  theological  sense.  It  is 
unfortunate  where  all  the  extreme  conserva- 
tives flock  off  by  themselves  and  become  all 
the  more  tense  and  rigid  in  their  conserva- 
tism by  their  lack  of  other  association.  It 
is  equally  unhappy  where  all  the  more  liberal 

90 


Unifying  the  Church 

and  more  progressive  minds  in  a  religious 
community  take  French  leave  of  those  who 
have  the  deeper  sense  of  values  already 
gained  —  they  are  likely  to  become  self- 
conscious  and  heady  in  their  new  views. 
Where  the  motive  which  impels  men  to  enter 
the  church  is  kept  deep  and  strong,  the 
door  of  entrance  may  be  kept  wide  open,  so 
far  as  theological  conformity  goes.  The 
unity  of  the  church  is  to  be  found  in  the  last 
analysis  in  "  the  unity  of  the  spirit  "  rather 
than  in  any  precise  agreement  touching  the 
details  of  our  interpretation  of  those  eternal 
verities  which  are  confessedly  too  vast  for 
any  sort  of  final  statement. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  once  to  serve  a 
church  where  two  of  the  deacons  stood  poles 
apart  in  their  theological  opinions.  They 
were  noble  men  and  they  have  both  gone 
to  their  reward,  so  that  I  venture  to  give  their 
names.  Edwards  C.  Williams  was  born  in 
Northampton,  Massachusetts,  and  was  named 
for  the  great  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  was 
more  orthodox  and  conservative  on  the  whole 
than  was  the  famous  theologian  whose  name 
he  bore.  He  was  no  ignorant  narrow-minded 
dogmatist.  He  knew  what  he  believed  and 
why  he  believed  it,  and  was  prepared  to  give 
a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him  to  any- 
one who  asked,  and  to  give  it  in  clear-cut 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

terms.  He  read  the  best  books.  He  took 
the  trouble  to  learn  the  Greek  language  after 
he  was  fifty  years  old  so  that  he  might  read 
his  New  Testament  in  the  original  and  combat 
his  pastor's  heresies,  if  such  there  should  be, 
on  something  like  equal  terms.  His  sturdy 
righteousness  was  like  a  sample  of  some  old 
Hebrew  prophet  brought  down  to  date. 

Wallace  W.  Lovejoy  was  a  poet  and  a 
dreamer  who  had  been  a  theological  professor 
in  his  earlier  life.  He  was  a  man  of  deep  and 
lovely  piety,  but  he  lived  in  the  clouds. 
Even  when  he  spoke  in  prayer-meeting  his 
utterance  was  sometimes  puzzling  to  the 
uninitiated.  The  people  listened  with  affec- 
tionate interest,  for,  while  they  did  not  always 
understand  what  he  was  talking  about,  they 
felt  so  sure  that  he  understood  it  all  that 
they  were  happy.  He  was  almost,  if  not 
altogether,  a  Unitarian  in  his  estimate  of  the 
person  of  Christ  and  in  other  theological 
positions  which  he  held  with  great  tenacity. 
But  the  stated  invitation  to  the  communion 
service  in  that  church,  which  bade  "  all  those 
who  love  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity 
and  truth  "  to  come  to  the  Lord's  table, 
took  in  both  deacons  alike  and  they  came 
with  equal  loyalty  to  Christ  in  their  hearts 
and  with  genuine  love  and  respect  for  each 
other.  And  as  they  passed  up  and  down 

9.2 


Unifying  the  Church 

the  aisles  of  the  same  church  with  the  bread 
and  the  wine  of  remembrance,  the  people 
received  the  sacrament  from  their  hands 
with  gratitude  and  satisfaction,  thanking 
God  for  the  presence  among  them  of  Edwards 
C.  Williams  and  of  Wallace  W.  Lovejoy. 

It  always  reminded  me  of  a  scene  in  one 
of    Ian     Maclaren's    stories    where   a   rigid 
Scotch  elder  and  a  young  minister  fresh  from 
the   University  of  Edinboro  had   fallen  out 
over  the  doctrine  which  was  being  preached 
from  the  pulpit  of  the  little  kirk.     The  young 
dominie  had  much  to  say  about    "  Semitic 
environment  "    and    the    latest    conclusions 
of   the    "  higher  criticism,"  while  the  elder 
sat  back  in  sturdy  anxiety  lest  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  should  be  upset  by  unholy  hands 
and  the  Ten  Commandments  all  spilled  out. 
They  argued  it  out  one  night  at  great  length, 
keeping   nothing   back   for   fear  or   for  con- 
science' sake.     They  were  both  too  thoroughly 
Scotch  to  abate  one  jot  or  one  tittle  of  their 
convictions,  and  the  discussion,  which  lasted 
until  midnight,  brought  them  nowhere.     But 
before  they  separated  they  clasped  hands  in 
honest  affection  and  engaged  together  in  a 
season  of  prayer.     And  when  they  were  on 
their  knees  before  their  Maker  it  was  noticed 
that  the  only  difference  in  their  prayers  was 
that  the  young  man  prayed  that  they  might 

93 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

keep  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints, 
and  the  old  man  prayed  that  the  Spirit  of 
Truth  might  lead  them  into  all  truth. 

Doctrinal  discussion  and  personal  pref- 
erence in  the  matter  of  ritual  and  polity 
may  divide  us,  but  we  all  come  together  in 
prayer  and  praise.  Here  is  a  hymn-book 
where  the  saints  and  the  singers  of  all  ages 
and  of  all  churches  have  lifted  up  their 
hearts  to  the  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all 
in  grateful  worship.  Here  in  a  single  hymnal 
in  constant  use  in  almost  any  one  of  our 
churches  are  "  Blest  be  the  Tie  that  Binds  " 
and  "I  Need  Thee  Every  Hour,"  written 
by  Baptists!  Here  are  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy, 
Lord  God  Almighty  "  and  "  The  Church's 
One  Foundation  is  Jesus  Christ  Our  Lord," 
written  by  Episcopalians!  Here  are  "  Love 
Divine  All  Love  Excelling  "  and  "  Jesus 
Lover  of  My  Soul,"  written  by  a  Methodist! 
Here  are  "  Stand  Up,  Stand  Up  for  Jesus  " 
and  "  I  Heard  the  Voice  of  Jesus  Say,  Come 
Unto  Me  and  Rest,"  written  by  Presbyte- 
rians! Here  are  "  Lead,  Kindly  Light  "  and 
"  Jerusalem,  the  Golden,"  written  by  Roman 
Catholics!  Here  are  "  A  Mighty  Fortress 
is  Our  God  "  and  "  Now  Thank  we  all  Our 
God,"  written  by  Lutherans!  Here  are 
"  Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee  "  and  "  In  The 
Cross  of  Christ  I  Glory,"  written  by  Uni- 

94 


Unifying  the  Church 

tarians!  Here  are  "  My  Faith  Looks  Up 
to  Thee  "  and  "  O  Master,  Let  Me  Walk 
with  Thee,"  written  by  Congregationalists ! 

Why  should  it  not  be  so?  All  things  are 
ours,  whether  Paul  or  Apollos  or  Peter; 
whether  John  Calvin  or  John  Wesley  or 
Adoniram  Judson;  whether  Jonathan 
Edwards  or  Alexander  Campbell  or  William 
Ellery  Channing;  whether  Francis  of  Assisi 
or  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  or  General 
William  Booth.  All  are  ours,  for  we  are 
Christ's  and  so  were  they,  every  man  of  them. 
Ours  to  know,  ours  to  revere,  and  ours  to 
love. 

The  sense  of  fellowship  in  any  single  church 
may  well  extend  far  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  that  immediate  parish.  Let  it  include 
the  past  history  of  that  local  church,  the 
sweet  memories  of  the  noble  men  and  women 
who  have  lived  in  it  and  loved  it  in  days 
gone  by.  Let  it  gather  up  into  itself  the 
recorection  of  the  crises  through  which  the 
church  has  passed,  the  great  sacrifices  which 
have  been  made  on  its  behalf  in  times  of 
stress,  the  varied  and  heroic  service  it  has 
been  privileged  to  render  to  the  interests 
of  the  Kingdom.  I  have  been  told  that  in 
the  Old  South  Church,  Boston,  there  is  a 
family  whose  ancestors  have  worshiped  in 
that  church  for  seven  generations.  Their 

95 


The  Honor  of  the  Church 

sense  of  high  privilege  and  their  joy  in  their 
church  relations  reaches  far  beyond  all  that 
they  receive  from  the  ministrations  of  its 
gifted  and  devoted  pastor.  The  Lord  has 
set  their  feet  in  a  large  place. 

The  sense  of  fellowship  must  include  all  the 
distinctive  values  contributed  to  our  total 
Christianity  by  the  particular  denomination 
in  which  it  stands.  Let  every  section  of  the 
church  of  Christ  write  its  own  Eleventh 
Chapter  of  Hebrews!  If  it  cannot  quite 
bring  forward  from  its  own  roll  of  member- 
ship honored  names  which  will  match  up 
with  those  of  Abraham  and  Moses,  it  can 
surely  offer  many  which  will  average  up  better 
than  Gideon  and  Barak,  Samson  and  Jep- 
thath,  as  they  have  wrought  righteousness, 
subdued  kingdoms  and  put  to  flight  the  armies 
of  evil.  Let  there  be  written  and  cherished 
a  book  of  remembrance  touching  those  who, 
in  one  particular  part  of  the  vineyard  of 
our  Lord,  "  thought  upon  his  name  "  and 
gave  a  good  account  of  themselves  in  the 
use  they  made  of  the  abilities  with  which  he 
had  entrusted  them. 

The  sense  of  fellowship  must  in  its  farthest 
reaches  include  the  Holy  Church  Universal. 
It  all  belongs  to  us  wherever  we  may  find 
ourselves,  if  we  are  indeed  members  of  the 
body  of  Christ.  We  are  joint  heirs  in  all 

96 


Unifying  the  Church 

the  rich  heritage  which  has  come  down 
through  the  history  and  achievements  of 
the  whole  church  of  the  living  God.  It  is 
good  to  get  that  sense  of  a  vaster  fellowship 
in  the  common  worship  of  all  the  members 
of  the  body  of  Christ.  It  will  not  destroy 
the  loyalty  of  men  to  their  own  particular 
group,  but  it  will  lift  them  out  of  the  narrow- 
ness of  a  petty  sectarianism  into  the  feeling 
of  participation  in  an  august  spiritual  enter- 
prise. "  Let  the  people  praise  thee,  O  God. 
Let  all  the  people  praise  thee!"  Let  them 
rejoice  in  their  common  fellowship  in  the 
Holy  Church  Universal,  in  the  communion 
of  saints. 


97 


